


A Fine Foray into Fashionable Fellatio

by calrissian18



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco Malfoy in Glasses, Jealousy, Liberal Mentions of Past Relationships, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Mpreg, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:06:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23216707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calrissian18/pseuds/calrissian18
Summary: First comes tolerating, then comes shagging, then comes unintended consequences.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Ron Weasley
Comments: 41
Kudos: 587
Collections: Ron/Draco Fest - Better Together





	A Fine Foray into Fashionable Fellatio

**Author's Note:**

> based on a self-prompt, so i could finally finish this beast. thanks so much to rinahale for the lovely alpha read and the bolstering as h*ck comments! And to fangqueen for, gosh, everything?? making me feel good about this fic and these characters and this world after being absent from them for so long, for the diligent and awesome beta work, and for being so freaking kind to a struggling participant whose fic just kept growing. any remaining mistakes are my own, because i fiddled just seconds from the buzzer.
> 
> apologies for any inconsistent britishizing, i haven’t done it in an age!

Shouts burst from an open door across the street. Three blokes tumble out squinty-eyed and unsteady, briefly merging into a three-headed entity. Ron’s had enough of those for a lifetime, thanks very much.  
  
The guttering light outside the pub is in time to the flutter of the vein under his eye, and the longer he stands under it, the more efficiently the cold and the wet finds him. The misting rain has managed to go from a minor inconvenience to something of a minor disaster, and he finds himself pushing sopping wet hair out of his eyes.  
  
At least Susan had bowed out of the night so he won’t have to deal with the half-pitying, half-gratified looks from his ex.  
  
Brittle branches leaden with the weight of the weather scrape against the stone edifice behind him, brittle as his patience, brittle as the thumbnail he’s working to divest himself of.  
  
A suck of air briefly deafens him—gone is the light falling of the rain, the ebullient rumble of voices, the tyres on pavement—and into the void is dropped a loud _pop_ , which precedes his new company. A low sniping about overbearing authority figures follows it.  
  
Ron unfolds his arms, sticks out his hand. “Let’s have the knut then.”  
  
Malfoy casts a condescending eye towards his outstretched palm. “Openly robbing people now?” He sniffs, adjusting the sides of a coat that Apparition has dislodged. He plucks at the elbows of his sleeves, settling himself in this time and this place as he always does. The jacket is Muggle, and the canvas is dark, maybe navy, but the floral pattern is large splashes of pastel. The dark hood attached at the neck is up, but tousled, and moon-pale hair edges out from under it. His coat and the sleeves of his neutral shirt underneath are rolled up to expose his forearms. “All those dire warnings about the lower class have proved true.”  
  
Ron eyes the ink on both arms, gaze sliding to land on the Dark Mark, though he’s seen it more often than not. It’s greying, ugly, and hardly worth the attention it gets. Malfoy doesn’t hide it; says he’d rather people sneer to his face than whisper behind his back.  
  
So they do.  
  
Ron doesn’t see how that’s much of an improvement, but it’s Malfoy’s life, and he seems to prefer it.  
  
Malfoy’s eyes roam over their surroundings. Ron half expects him to denounce this street with the trash in its gutters, this pub with its Muggle-friendly atmosphere, and this person in front of him as ‘beneath his station,’ but the reality of him is not quite as Victorian-scandalised as Ron sometimes imagines. He simply smirks as though he’d expected nothing less while tugging something crinkly from the back pocket of his dark jeans. Likely come from visiting his parents then, wearing all that. From what Ron has gathered, they still weren’t on the best of terms.  
  
Malfoy’s parents are trying, and Malfoy is testing.  
  
Despite the ridiculous dress, there’s not a wrinkle on him, pristine even in his rebellion. The pack of smokes between his fingers, on the other hand, is crumpled, bent, and creased. Likely nicked from one of his Slytherin cronies, or his most recent tumble. He pulls out a sad-looking fag, his wand from an Enchanted pocket, and ignites the tip. The glow illuminates his haughty features, briefly softened by the pleasure at the indulgence.  
  
He takes in a long drag, throwing his head back as though he’s been carrying all the troubles of the world on his sharp shoulders.  
  
Because Malfoy and scope have never had much to do with one another.  
  
If he’d been dragged to an art gallery on one of the only non-slush days in January four years back by a bushy-haired, brainy girl he loved so hard it confused and pained him, then Ron could remind Malfoy that he’s only a single dot in a pointillist painting, and Malfoy would understand his meaning.  
  
But he wasn’t, and so Ron can’t.  
  
Malfoy scratches at his scruffy throat with his middle two fingernails, perpetually taller than Ron remembers, and accentuating it stretched out like that. One hand is in the pocket of his coat, the other grasping at his fag, torn between standing up at his full height and slouching the way Ron is. His knee crooked, but his spine straight.  
  
Ron thinks about going after it, wheedling Malfoy into self-consciousness, but Malfoy’s figuring out how to be, who he is outside of his parent’s desires, outside of the debunked myth that is pureblood superiority.  
  
It’s painful, but oddly gratifying to watch because the disconnect means he’s trying.  
  
Ron taps a finger in his palm after Malfoy’s exhaled a stream of smoke through his nostrils, waiting for the calm to take its place. If Malfoy needs to take up smoking just to take some deep bloody breaths, Ron’s behind it. “Late, the way you swore up and down you wouldn’t be. Said you’d owe me a knut if you weren’t here when I showed.”  
  
Malfoy considers Ron’s palm, tilts his boxy shoulders, says nasally, “Well that sounds like an elaborate lie, and more fool you for believing it.” He ashes his fag in Ron’s still outstretched hand, expression thoughtful. “In fact… the cost of believing such a lie is a galleon, if I remember correctly.”  
  
Ron swipes his hand against his thigh without thought. Malfoy only gets worse with an attentive audience, and Ron has finally semi-learned not to be one. There is, however, only so much resisting he can do. He’s a human being who grew up with six siblings. He has buttons, oodles of them, and Malfoy crashes into them every so often, to his own unholy delight.  
  
Malfoy smokes languidly, and Ron opens his mouth, not so bothered delivering the bad news now, when Malfoy glances over at him, cutting him off. Charcoal eyes—reflecting the street corner, the weather, Ron’s mood—dance with mirth. “If I’m meant to feel ashamed of myself because you’ve decided to act the drowned martyr out here, then I’m afraid you’ve greatly misjudged our relationship.”  
  
Ron now _relishes_ the bad news. “Harry’s coming tonight.”  
  
Malfoy’s shoulders stiffen, and the movement jostles the hood enough it falls down his back. His hair isn’t as rowdy as it had looked underneath, more a balance of waves today. It’s still as white blond as it’d been in school, when it had heralded nothing more than the worst part of Ron’s day, but it’s no longer slicked back. Turned out all that product had been hiding an unruly bit of _curls_ , and while it was never as turbulent as the top of Harry’s head regularly got, the gentle swells and dips with the occasional crash of waves could go from stylish to hellish depending on its mood that day. Malfoy didn’t do much to quell it, cutting the sides short and letting the top form its own bramble patch.  
  
Ron had made fun of him mercilessly when he’d first seen it, and it hadn’t been friendly then.  
  
Malfoy had gone after his mum in response.  
  
Even on more amiable terms now, it’s still a bit of a laugh. If only because it makes him look sixteen all over again.  
  
He looks up finally, expression cool and eyes narrow. His voice is all spite and vitriol; without the heat to it, though, ruffled rather than raging. “Stole your day planner, the one that’s all hearts and cupids and ‘Mr. Ronald Granger,’ and invited himself along, did he?”  
  
Ron doesn’t answer. He’s no longer relishing. He crosses his arms over his chest and refuses to feel bad while feeling bad.  
  
“What’s that lurgy?” Malfoy says flatly. “Babbling something-or-other? Came down with it in the last—” he twists his hand carelessly, trailing cigarette smoke, “minute or so, can’t possibly be held responsible for anything I might say. Or do.”  
  
“Don’t be an arse,” Ron snaps at him. Truthfully, they’re not even that bad anymore. Their rivalry seems more habit than feeling these days.  
  
Though Ron will admit, there’s something about Harry for Malfoy. A stiffness to him that’s never there with only Ron in attendance. A defiance. As though he’s perpetually awaiting judgement the moment Harry’s in the vicinity. At least that’s why Ron assumes Malfoy can never seem to rest easy with Harry in the room, and Ron doesn’t know how to make any relationship work, even the odd duck one he and Malfoy have, if Harry’s banned from rooms.  
  
Malfoy’s look is reproving, as though he would ever be anything so _common_ as that. He drops his fag, crushes it beneath beige trainers that look like they were taken right out of an advert, laces perfectly spaced, not a speck of dirt on them.  
  
Ron isn’t taken in. “All I want is my basket of fish and chips, a few pints, and to not have to Obliviate anyone, right?” It can’t be that much to ask for, it really can’t.  
  
Malfoy rolls his eyes, says peevishly, “That happened once. Could you be more of a drama queen?”  
  
Ron leans into his space, grins widely and with an inherent _snick_ to it. “Please, as if you haven’t held the title, crown, and sceptre since we were eleven, you former princess.”  
  
Malfoy’s wand twirls between his fingers. One rotation, two, seamless. He points the tip at his feet, draws it up to the top of his head, and utters a lazy incantation, the dampness gathering into a small tidal wave at its end. He pulls it back, tosses it out, and lets it untether directly into Ron’s face. He ignores Ron’s sputtered, dripping, red-faced anger in favour of examining his new dryness. He sniffs, turning towards the door and offering over his shoulder, “I hope that means you recognise how lucky you are that recently-promoted royalty like myself even associates with a wretched plebeian like you, one who goes so far as to ask after my coin as soon as I get within spitting distance.”  
  
The water dribbles off Ron with a muttered spell forced from between his teeth, a large puddle forming at his feet, but at least he’s dry. Mostly. His jumper has the odd patch of damp, and his trainers squeak, but he catches the door of the pub before Malfoy can slip all the way inside, calling at his back, “Oi, what was that about spitting? Sounds promising.”  
  
Malfoy doesn’t rise to the bait, instead drifting like a ghost through the pub. No one touches him, and he touches nothing, a slender body that knows how to navigate any terrain to keep himself from encountering anything unsavoury. He leads with his torso, twists with his hips, and pauses before an open booth. For a moment, he looks like he’s going to shed his jacket, then frowns, and instead straightens the collar. He slides in the right side, the one with a fuller view of the pub, the door and bar in his eye line.  
  
Ron catches up, having been snagged by a few ‘how dos’ and briefly tangled on a stool. Malfoy is gently scrubbing at the back of his head, fingers sliding and scrunching over the short hair. It’s not a gesture Ron recognises, and likely one Malfoy’s seen and stolen for a try out. It’s uniquely not him, something someone with fewer cares and less familiarity with etiquette would do. Ron doubts it’ll last. He settles in across from Malfoy, back to the door, grinning wide. “Thought you paid all your ‘friends,’ my mistake.”  
  
“Bastard,” Malfoy says tersely, but a smirk lingers around his lips, not quite landing but hovering nearby.  
  
Ron thinks that might be exactly why their whatever-it-is has lasted as long as it has. Malfoy _likes_ when Ron bests him.  
  
And Ron, happily, has gotten much better at doing just that.  
  
Malfoy’s eyes flit away, not wanting to seem too approving, and they dance through the clumps of after work drinkers and boozy reunions, lingering on anyone who lingers on him, on the pull no doubt. Or maybe just enjoying being admired. The former would explain why he worked to beat Ron to the booth though, if he wanted one with eyes.  
  
His gaze lands back on Ron, not quite meeting his eyeline, instead dodging back and forth between the tops of his cheeks as he often does, drifting over the areas where Ron knows his freckles cluster more heavily. Either sensing Ron’s self-consciousness, or just done with his perusal, his eyes flick up and meet Ron’s.  
  
And Ron knows his cue when he sees it. “What’ll ya have then?”  
  
Malfoy’s at his most comfortable now he’s being served, his back relaxing into the shadow of the booth as the light above isn’t quite centred. Ron is bathed in a warm, orange glow and Malfoy’s settled on the rim of it. He taps his prim fingers on the table and the ink on his inner arm pulls Ron’s attention. Climbing vines twist up his forearm in a constant crawl from wrist to elbow, petals wave in an unseen wind, some endlessly breaking free from their flowers to drift among lazily puttering bees, only to return to first position. It’s his un-Marked arm, the one that’s all colour and life, the one that’s a direct rebuttal against the other. Malfoy breathes out so diligently, a slight whistle goes with it. “Blishen’s. Tankard.”  
  
Drama. Queen. “Godric. It won’t be _that_ bad, y’know. You and Harry practically get on now.” Ron feels it’s incumbent upon him to point that out, especially as they both tend to pretend otherwise.  
  
Malfoy arches a brow at him, his features all angles and contrariness. “And what reality are you living in, then?” The jacket’s still on, and the pub’s warmer than it had seemed when they first came in, the crowd denser and the lights brighter, which means he’s hoping for a quick getaway. Ron only mostly wants to punch him for it.  
  
“Just.” Ron weighs the benefits of saying something versus saying nothing, but blimey, he doesn’t see a way around it. Malfoy is a bitch when he’s bladdered. “It’s not a race, yeah? We don’t need a repeat of Portsmouth.”  
  
“Weasley,” Malfoy leans across the dark oak table, grinning, and it’s a snick-snack sort of grin the way Ron’s was earlier, “get me. My bloody. _Drink_.” He’s got that aristocratic air, that pomposity that says he’s used to getting exactly what he’s asked for, though his body language and style have been trying to shed that.  
  
It’s not going well.  
  
“Right, m’off,” Ron murmurs under his breath, leaving the booth.  
  
He’s only just ordered—a sensible drink for himself and the trough for Malfoy (against his better judgement)—when Harry finds him at the bar.  
  
Lean and loose and grinning, he’s in rosy spirits, either because he’s had a good day, or because the day’s over—Ron isn’t sure—and still sporting his work kit, a scarlet faux-leather trench that’s enough to identify him as an Auror, but not enough to restrict his movements. Ron squints and, yep, that’s a distressed Weird Sisters t-shirt he’s got on beneath it, doing the job of citing him as not-too-much a company man. Ron actually thinks it might be Gin’s, the way it fits across his chest. A flush is high in his cheeks, which means he probably got to chase someone at some point.  
  
Harry eyes Malfoy’s drink as it’s delivered, impressed. “Took the news that well, did he?” There’s an anticipatory slyness to his expression that Ron doesn’t like one bloody bit.  
  
Ron narrows his eyes at him. “Don’t instigate.”  
  
Harry holds up callused hands, mock offended. “I’ve done nothing.” It might’ve even been convincing if not for the smirk.  
  
“ _Yet_.” Ron rubs his forehead. “Merlin’s soggy knickers, being around Malfoy makes me forget you’re somehow just as bad.”  
  
“I resent that,” Harry says stoutly. A wiry sort of tension is stringing him up tonight, like he’s spoiling for something, and that’s just fucking grand, isn’t it?  
  
Normally it means Harry’s after an adventure or a mystery to solve, something familiar to break up the yet-more-familiar, which Ron only sometimes minds. Unless Malfoy’s nearby, and then it can be transmuted into looking for a knock down drag out. Either metaphorically, or entirely not metaphorically.  
  
That is so very much not happening tonight.  
  
“Which is just another way of saying you can’t refute it,” Ron points out, then waits while Harry flags down the barman, who’s actually a bird and looks a year or two younger than them. She’s preemptively giving off a take-no-shite vibe, her scowl making her piercings look menacing. The expression quickly melts once she does the familiar doubletake, staring at Harry’s forehead with an awed expression. Harry self-consciously pats down the wild nest of hair atop his head trying to hide it.  
  
He orders a respectable Knotgrass Mead that she doesn’t charge him for (Ron doubts her fingers could’ve worked through the transaction if she had, the way they’re shaking), which is lucky for him because Ron likely would’ve Transfigured anything else he ordered _into_ Knotgrass Mead. Only Malfoy’s drink is going to need to become part of a keep away game.  
  
Luckily, those shaky hands have shaved a fair bit off the top, so that’s something.  
  
Ron takes his time on the way over, then sets the tankard on the far side of the table, closer to his own elbow than Malfoy’s hand.  
  
Malfoy’s not remotely amused, even more so because Harry’s with him as Ron does it. He likely thinks it’s a nasty little two-against-one mentality Ron’s arrived back with, always anticipating a loyalty that doesn’t cut his way and can only ever properly harm him. Because friendships can hurt in Malfoy’s world; because _anything_ can be used to hurt in Malfoy’s world.  
  
Malfoy angles himself more sharply in line with the edges of the table and booth. Every movement more measured now Harry’s in the picture. “Potter,” he greets with not even thinly veiled disdain, “how’s the wife?”  
  
It’s a sore spot, because of course it is. Malfoy would’ve said something else if it wasn’t. Malfoy and Harry only have anything to say to each other if there’s something tender to poke at.  
  
Harry’s proposed twice now. He’s not engaged. It’s not in the _Prophet_ quite yet but it’s not much of a secret either.  
  
“Still not married, Malfoy,” he says with an ‘eat shite’ smile. He takes a sip of his mead, savouring it. Only he’s not, of course, he’s savouring—“How’s Vaisey?”  
  
Ron’s wince is the most pronounced at the table. Malfoy’s expression goes sour, and instead of retorting back at Harry, flinty eyes flick over to Ron. “You’ve told him then.”  
  
Ron stares into his Ocky Rot. “I’m a bad mate, very bad,” he mutters into it. He shouldn’t have said it, and he knew as he was saying it, he shouldn’t have said it, but it’s not as if Malfoy doesn’t know that Ron’s foot somewhat permanently resides in his mouth. Ron looks up, and Malfoy is still staring at him coolly. “Your tab’s on me tonight, eh? Drink up, then. Blishen’s till you can’t stand, if you like.”  
  
An Irish voice rises over the noise in the pub, briefly breaking the tension, and, bloody hell, what is Seamus doing here? That’s hardly a help. Harry grins, says, “Just a tick,” and goes after it. Or maybe it is. Seamus’ antics usually have a way of satisfying that on tenterhooks state for Harry, and that’s better than getting it through the volatility already brewing between him and Malfoy.  
  
Ron’s expression goes even more hangdog as soon as Harry’s out of sight. “I shouldn’t have said.”  
  
Malfoy’s face catches the oranges and reds of the pub light, only his left cheek in shadow, and it’s harder to fathom his expression here than it was outside. His natural undertones had complemented the pale blues and silvers and weak yellows and it had been harder for him to hide in that chilly sameness.  
  
Malfoy’s not looking at him, and this is so much worse than if he were taking Ron apart with verbal insults designed to cut to the bone. “No,” he says finally, voice simmering with anger, “you shouldn’t have.” The fight deserts him quickly, and he sighs. “This is why we can’t be mates, Weasley. You’ve given all your loyalty and love away to the first bloke who remembered your name. Which is fair enough, as the only reason I call you ‘Weasley’ so often is I haven’t the slightest.” He drags up a few sickles and knuts from his coat pocket and drops them on the table, sliding to the edge of the booth.  
  
Ron grabs his elbow, which is the first thing he can reach. “All right, all right. You’ve made your point, I’m a shite, and I feel even guiltier than I should about it. What do you want besides the Blishen’s?”  
  
Malfoy eyes him, smirks because he won, and sits back. His fingers tighten on the table, twitching for a fag that isn’t there. “A line in your will would go some way towards repairing the wound.” He’s all long limbs and casual victory across the booth, and Ron would find it obnoxious if he weren’t so relieved.  
  
He still rolls his eyes. “Bugger off. Like I’m incentivising you any more towards my demise.” He leans across so they’re less likely to be overheard, in case Harry shows back up at the wrong moment. It’s not likely, the way Seamus can monopolise a bloke, but he’s not about to bollocks up again in such a scant amount of time. “In my defence, I didn’t know how much of an overstep I was making, did I? You’re the one who held back half the story.”  
  
Malfoy looks him over, unimpressed and not the least bit repentant. “Some reason I shouldn’t have? Look at the damage you’ve done with only half of it.”  
  
Ron slumps back, now at least half as angry as Malfoy. If he’d known that Vaisey actually _mattered_ , then he wouldn’t have spouted off, probably. Malfoy wasn’t even willing to give him the chance though, rather give him sound bites than stories. Of course he was going to do daft things with them like that. Sound bites sound _good_ , that’s the whole point of them. He refuses to pick up the entirety of the tab for their failed friendship.  
  
And Malfoy’s a prick for implying he should.  
  
Ron grips the whole of his glass round the bottom rather than the handle and goes to pour it all back when Malfoy kicks him in the shin, more for emphasis than injury. “Don’t pout.”  
  
Ron hates that he knows it’s an apology because Malfoy should have to _actually bloody apologise_ rather than trust Ron knows him well enough to speak his esoteric, emotionally-devoid language. But he does, and they both know he does, so Ron just loosens his grip and grumbles back.  
  
It’s not like he can get up on too high a hippogriff himself, considering he’s hardly been the best at owning his wrongs with Malfoy either.  
  
Seamus chooses that moment to bumble over, arm looped around Harry’s shoulders, the other holding the neck of an Ogden’s Old. Blimey, who let him have that? “Ron!” he bellows, and behind him is a very familiar redhead, though looking half as familiar when the man brushing shoulders with him doesn’t share his every freckle.  
  
Ron watches Malfoy’s eyes become intensely focussed on that second face and bites back a groan. Bloody hell, this isn’t good, and he’s trying to strategise running interference when Lee notices who’s in the booth with him. The eye contact becomes unfortunately mutual, gazes locked and dancing over anticipatory smiles.  
  
“Draco,” Lee says shortly, tongue flicking across his full lower lip in a move that looks unconscious rather than practised, even though everyone there knows better, “been a while.” He smiles wider, enough to show teeth, his most undeniably attractive asset. He’s also ditched the dreadlocks since school, grown his hair out, and dyed it pink. It forms a small cumulus cloud atop his head. He still dresses like those used car salesmen in Muggle adverts though, checked jacket and chino’s.  
  
Malfoy, however, doesn’t appear too bothered by the looks of it, not even hiding the hitch of his breath as Lee’s eyes travel slowly down his body.  
  
Bloody hell. How is it on _Ron_ to keep him from being a tit? Ron can see this game eight moves deep while Malfoy can’t see past the first. He’s eager for it now, but a week from now—maybe two if Malfoy’s lucky—Lee will be gone, leaving Malfoy feeling cheap and used, and Ron will have to deal with the snit Malfoy will refuse to admit he’s in for at least a month.  
  
“Lee,” Ron says through gritted teeth, the man indirectly responsible for Ron’s face full of pustules last summer. He’s not about to let that happen a second time. He briefly gauges George’s state of inebriation to see how much help he might be in corralling his mate. Barely a moment’s examination tells Ron it’ll be none.  
  
He likely didn’t end up with oozing boils that didn’t heal for weeks, and therefore isn’t as motivated.  
  
Luckily, Ron is motivated enough for both of them.  
  
“‘Ello, baby boy Weasley,” Lee says with a roguish grin.  
  
All right. Well. Ron might’ve been motivated to do this regardless. Malfoy half laughs, a preppy, condescending laugh that Ron hasn’t missed at all. Ron doesn’t give in to the urge to hex him, focusing instead on sliding out of the booth and feigning an overzealous greeting with George. Which gives him the opportunity to knee Lee in the bollocks, under the guise of drunken gregariousness.  
  
Never mind that he hasn’t had so much as a single drop yet.  
  
“Oh, sorry, mate,” Ron says with boisterous good humour and only slight apology. “Lucky you weren’t planning to use those anytime soon, eh?” he adds with a wink.  
  
Lee looks up from his hunched over position, and Ron offers a hand, which Lee takes. Ron grabs it tightly, grinding the bones, and says, “Ain’t that right, mate?”  
  
Lee’s eyes quickly cut to Malfoy before darting back to Ron. “Right,” he spits, not angry so much as beaten by a superior player. Can’t play checkers with a bloke playing chess, someone ought to’ve told Lee that.  
  
When Lee can stand upright again, he grabs George round the shoulders and says, “Think your little brother’s lost it, mate.”  
  
George smiles benignly and agrees, “Oh yeah, ages back.”  
  
Ron flips him off, and Harry offers, “You’re welcome to join us,” because Harry can be a real idiot at times.  
  
Lee laughs, threatening thunder with the shake of his cloud cover, and says, “Potter never could read a room,” and Seamus says, “No, no, ‘ve supposedta meet Dean ages ‘go.”  
  
Harry frowns, rubbing a careful hand over his scruff-darkened jaw. “You’re not Apparating are ya, mate?”  
  
Seamus shakes his head, straw-coloured hair flopping on a sweaty forehead, says proudly, “’S’a Portkey with m’name on it, not t’worry, Head Auror-sir.”  
  
Harry’s dark cheeks quickly go ruddy, and his shoulders meet up with his ears. “Circe, I’m not the _Head_ Auror, Seamus.”  
  
Ron grins proudly, jumping on his happiness for Harry to defuse any possible lingering tension. “Close enough though, eh? Stebbins asked for Harry’s input on the Devonshire case just this morning. It’s a matter of time.” He claps Harry on the shoulder while Harry smiles at his trainers, embarrassed but pleased.  
  
Seamus jostles Harry brightly. “All righ’, there, mate,” he says as though Harry’s just announced the promotion.  
  
Ron slides back into the booth as George and Lee turn their attention on Harry as well. His gaze half snags on an idle figure at the bar before he yanks it back around.  
  
He turns to find Malfoy eyeing him, looking like he has been a while. Ron unconsciously straightens, mirroring Malfoy’s freakishly good posture, trying not to care how he’s fared in the examination.  
  
Malfoy tilts his chin carefully; he’s barely touched his Blishen’s. “That was rude,” he decides finally, tone lacking any reprimand.  
  
Ron throws back his drink, glad for the excuse to look away from him, and wipes his mouth with his elbow, his thick jumper working well enough as a napkin. “No idea what you mean.”  
  
Malfoy’s weighing of Ron’s behaviour over, he’s clearly decided to be annoyed by it, and his eyes narrow as he leans forward, saying in a low tone, “Don’t insert yourself in—”  
  
And that’s e-bloody-nough of that. Maybe if Ron wasn’t made to deal with the fallout of Malfoy’s foul moods, he would’ve kept out, but it affects him too. Sad as that is. He hisses back, “You act like a class-A fuckwit whenever he gets within twenty metres of you, and Lee knows it. Uses it.”  
  
Harry breaks away from Seamus, George, and Lee to rejoin them, awkwardly sizing up the crackle of tension between them. Ron shoves over so Harry can slide in, but he remains standing, waiting to see if anyone’s about to pull a wand.  
  
Malfoy leans back, and his expression clears, and there’s an unexpected approval in his voice when he says, “That was rather Slytherin of you. In fact…” he _does_ pull out his wand and, in a flick of it, Ron feels something thick and eerily smooth coil around his neck. He looks down and lifts a Slytherin tie up off his chest.  
  
The knot at his throat is better tied than any he’s ever managed in six years, Charmed or otherwise, and that fact alone is infuriating.  
  
He plunges a hand into his trouser pocket for his wand, holds Malfoy’s gaze, and promptly sets the tie on fire. The flames lick his skin in a gentle tickle as the spell-made fabric goes up in a poof. Magic is masked at this particular pub so the only eyes they attract come from other witches and wizards and, even then, it’s only glancing attention. Well, with one exception. Ron bats his eyelashes and says in a too-sweet voice, “I’ll cherish it.”  
  
Harry, having assessed it’s nothing more than their usual bickering, sits down and grabs his drink from Ron’s other side, taking a swig from it merrily.  
  
Malfoy smirks, enjoying the argument since there’s no venom in it (he’s not alone in that), and his wand arcs through the air with a yawning motion as he shoots back, “I’ll make you presentable yet.”  
  
Ron doesn’t feel it, but can tell from the way Harry’s eyes dart to his head, something’s been done. His hand shoots up, feeling something cold and hard in his hair. He unclips two barrettes with Slytherin-coloured bows on them from his head with a murmured, “Godric, you’re annoying.”  
  
Malfoy doesn’t seem bothered by the remonstrance. In fact, he’s rather exceptionally pleased with himself if the thin-lipped smile is anything to go by. He’s still gloating, triumphant, when his periphery catches what Ron had clocked a ways back. The bloke at the bar whose eyes have been tracking the precision of Malfoy’s limbs, the shine of his hair, the absurdity of his dress with a near unblinking attentiveness. Malfoy’s smirk widens to a kick of a promising smile as their eyes meet, and he turns back to Ron, challenging. “And does he meet with your approval?”  
  
Ron hunches his shoulders, and it’s not like he was looking to have final say over Malfoy’s shags or anything, but if he’s going to ask, then—“Looks shifty.”  
  
From the looks of it, neither Malfoy nor Harry had actually expected him to answer, and Ron can feel his ears going red in embarrassment, but he refuses to back away from the comment. The bloke _does_ look shifty.  
  
Malfoy visibly shakes it off rather than comment on it, though he looks more amused than anything, and he leaves the two of them with a dismissive, “Emperor Potter,” and a nod at Ron before sauntering over to meet his admirer.  
  
Harry calls after him, “I prefer ‘His Divine Excellency,’ for future reference, Malfoy.” He turns back to Ron and perks an eyebrow, unsubtly drinking his mead. Or maybe just hiding his expression behind the lip of it.  
  
Ron keeps his gaze trained over his glass and mumbles, “What?”  
  
Harry lowers his drink, feigns innocence. “I didn’t say anything.”  
  
Ron almost guffaws at the idea that Harry even _has_ to. He sinks back, knocks his shoulder into Harry’s. “Known you the more memorable half of my life, you didn’t have to.” He gives Harry what he hopes is a hard stare, but is probably more like a soft plea. “So? What?”  
  
Harry shrugs, taking another leisurely sip of his mead, and says without inflection—well, without accusation really—“You care about him.” Once upon a time, this might’ve been cause for a serious duel, or at least a hearty row, but four years into this thing with Malfoy, and they’ve all done enough fighting over the prig to ever be interested in starting up another.  
  
They’ve reached a consensus on him: obnoxious, but harmless. He’s never going to be anyone else’s first choice for company, but about all his presence is worth these days is an eyeroll.  
  
“I tolerate him,” is Ron’s immediate, knee-jerk response and a familiar one. But if it was just down to tolerating now, Ron probably wouldn’t invite him out quite so often, and sod Malfoy and his dramatics, they _were_ mates, weren’t they?  
  
“Ron,” is all Harry has to say.  
  
Ron sighs, unable to deny this thing with Malfoy has broken a few fences past grudging acceptance. He digs his unbitten thumbnail into a dark spot on his slim-fitting joggers, the drawstring brushing his hand as he absentmindedly scrubs at it. Maybe there is something to the adrenaline that Malfoy’s presence engenders, the tight corkscrew between Ron’s shoulder blades and the prickle of tension in his fingers and toes that comes from not knowing what to expect.  
  
“All right, yeah, fine. Dunno how it happened.” He really doesn’t. They’d been venomous, then biting, then more half-heartedly nipping and, at some point, Ron had started to _look forward_ to meeting Malfoy in the Ministry’s lifts; Malfoy on his way to lobby for his possessions, his freedom, his reputation, and Ron on his way to or from his office. It had become a relief, a release, to be cruel and not have to deal with any consequences from it. Because Ron’s brother is dead, and cruel made him feel better, if just for a moment—and Malfoy’s life is in shambles, and cruel made him feel in control, if just for a moment.  
  
Ron’s eyes start to flicker over to the bar, and he pulls them back before they can brush against the topic, looking instead at Harry’s patient and open face. “He’s a complete prick, an utter narcissist, and unrepentantly offencive to any- and everyone, and I’ll kick Lee’s arse if he ever gets that close to him again.”  
  
The problem is Malfoy’s wet clay now, trying to let the shape come to him rather than dictate what it should be, the way his parents had done. In that state, though, he’s susceptible to input. Any input. No matter how inaccurate.  
  
And Lee’s had been both inaccurate and unkind.  
  
“I like him loud and obnoxious, and sure he’s better than me, and I’m still trying to come to terms with that. There’s got to be a support group somewhere, eh?”  
  
Harry clinks his glass against Ron’s and says pityingly, “Pretty sure this is it.”  
  
Bugger.

* * *

The wind hurts Ron’s nostrils as he breathes it in, a piercing sort of cold joining the scent of sea salt and sunshine. It races up his arms, raising gooseflesh and lifting the short, shaggy hair from the top of his scalp. He opens his eyes to a cloudless sky, a cold sun, and rolling green hills.  
  
He already feels weightless, and he hasn’t even kicked a leg over his broom yet.  
  
Days like this, it’s not so bad being not much more than a footnote to the legacy that is _Harry Potter_. Not when he can get you a sanctioned private match at Dartmoor and a coveted prototype of the newest Yajirushi racing broom.  
  
It’s a mostly forgotten stadium now, large faults running through the slabs of stone forming the stands, hoops tilting with the roots and rumblings beneath, the cliffs crumbling, changing the terrain at the western edge of the pitch. It’s a beautiful, deserted ruin, and the waves crash below like an audience in thrall.  
  
Even Malfoy hasn’t been able to find much to whinge about.  
  
After recovering from being knocked mute by the view, Malfoy’s finally attacked the early hour. He’s about the only one who’s not still marvelling at the size of the pitch, the ivy climbing the stands, the graceful wheeling of the terns as they dive beyond the cliff’s edge.  
  
No one has much of an ear for it, and Harry claps him on the shoulder, quite a bit harder than ‘friendly.’ Malfoy only grumbles in response, half awake and more than aware he’s acting a prig about it. Doesn’t mean he’s apologetic, but does mean he’s not retaliatory.  
  
Ginny almost looks jealous Harry got to him first. Ron’s sure she is, but she mostly keeps it off her face.  
  
Some of the Weasleys have come farther than others on the Malfoy front.  
  
“All right, ‘s only a practice match, so let’s keep our wands and our tempers out of it, yeah?” Harry says, in a galvanising sort of speech. Malfoy only yawns in response, but amazingly, he’s not the intended audience. Susan and Ernie are. They’d been strategically placed on separate teams so they couldn’t fuel off one another, a lesson they’d all learned the hard way.  
  
“He’s done this on purpose, y’know,” Malfoy whinges, not quite _to_ Ron, but in his general vicinity. His hair’s an absolute briarpatch, and his voice scratches. “Only the _working class_ is up and functioning at this time of day. He’s put me at a deliberate disadvantage.”  
  
“It’s ten a.m., Malfoy,” Ron can’t help but point out, though he regrets engaging the second he does.  
  
Thankfully Malfoy’s too exhausted to do much more than narrow his eyes and nod at Ron as though he’s just put his finger on it. “Exactly my point, Weasley, thank you.”  
  
Merlin, Ron hates him. Luckily, he doesn’t have to explain to anyone why he’s grinning then, as everyone’s getting into position over their brooms, and Harry counts down the release of the snitch.  
  
They play three matches, all mostly nonviolent. Only a few _Emendo_ charms are needed and a record low of two red cards are handed out—both to Ernie. That had been Dean’s contribution to their play ages ago and had been a welcome, and somewhat necessary, one, as giving a few choice players time to collect themselves before returning for the next match had been a definite boon.  
  
There’s also a ‘five red cards and you’re out a month’ rule that Wood keeps stumbling over, which explains his absence today.  
  
Malfoy had caught the snitch once and knocked Harry off his broom twice, so he is, happily, in rather a better mood than he had been when he first arrived. Gin’s the same, having scored the most points of anyone, and Harry, well. Harry’s happy whenever Ginny’s happy, so he’s nearly walking on air by the time they’re gathering up all the equipment.  
  
Hermione squints from the stands, magically amplifying her voice with a _Sonorous_ charm. “Is it over then?” The pile of books next to her has kept her such good company that she’s barely looked up once during the entire play. Ron doubts she could even guess at how many matches there were.  
  
Pages are open all around her on the benches to either side, one book floating in midair in front of her face. She’s rewriting laws, deconstructing policies, changing the world up there in her spare time to the surprise of absolutely no one, and Ron loves her. In a decidedly less romantic way than originally suspected… though, even that’s not entirely accurate. He finds her wonderful in every way there is to find another person wonderful, and only one tiny flaw had got in the way of that: they were poison together. Bickering and sniping and crashing on Harry’s couch all quickly became staples of their disastrous relationship. Essential parts of him had clashed with essential parts of her.  
  
And maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t wanted to be the second most important person in every room they were in together. He can’t deny he gets enough of that already. He knows Hermione is bound for history books, the same way Harry is, and the same way Ron probably isn’t. He doesn’t need to be, truly, but he does need to have something. Something that is his and his alone.  
  
He’s taking his time finding it, but he’s confident he _is_ finding it, and because he is, he’s happy to discover that no part of him resents his friends’ success. Even if he’s hopeful he won’t _always_ be in the shadow of it.  
  
Ron stares up at her fondly, using the same charm to say back, “Hoping to play, were you?”  
  
She rolls her eyes. Ron can’t see it, but he knows her well enough to know: eyes were rolled. She stands, shrinking the books to fit in her tote, scarf unfurling from her lap to settle down around the ankles of her pajama bottoms.  
  
She’d gotten a bit carried away knitting that one, and only wrapping it an absurd amount of times around her neck keeps it from dragging on the ground. The chunky, endless loops distract from the bushy, erratic hair, though.  
  
Somewhat.  
  
Ron watches her a moment or two longer, because she’s no longer watching him, and he can, enjoying the calm weather and the beautiful girl with the library in her bag and the slippers on her feet.  
  
Happily, they’d both mostly laughed off the end of their relationship, and while things had been awkward for a solid block, they’d eventually come out the other side of it better mates, and with an increased intimacy of their knowledge of one another. It hadn’t been where either of them expected things to end up, but neither of them felt that bad off.  
  
Since the dissolution of their romantic hopes, Hermione had even dated some bloke who supplied her non-profit over the summer—a stodgy, bespectacled fellow who had a voice as powerful as a _Somnus_ spell, and Ron had rebounded with Susan in a spectacular display of poor judgement. Not that Susan herself had been the poor decision—she was a lovely woman—only Ron had been drawn to her for many of the ways she reminded him of Hermione, which were the fundamental ways they hadn’t worked to begin with.  
  
To date, he hasn’t tried again, despite Harry and Gin’s unsubtle attempts to set him up every so often. That lack of subtlety working in his favour to avoid the circus in nearly its entirety.  
  
Hermione finally gathers herself, hands shoved in the pocket of her sweatshirt, the one with the word ‘Reading’ and a picture of a rainbow on it, and slips out of his eyeline to descend the stairs. Harry and Gin have already taken off, and George and Angelina, the last of the stragglers, are just moseying out when Ron casts a _Tempus_. It’s after lunch, and his stomach is grumbling, and he’d been hoping for a spot of tea, which always tastes better when he hasn’t paid for it himself.  
  
He yawns, considering. Malfoy would’ve gotten one last dig in about his spectacular failure to block Cho’s goal in the last match if he’d left already, which means he’s likely gone off to the locker rooms. And he’s a bloke without a job and a vault full of galleons, so he’s good for tea _and_ a sarnie.  
  
Ron half-jogs over to the other side of the pitch, inhaling deep breaths of clean, wild air, before disappearing into the shadowed entrance under the stadium. The air in the hallways is stale, the ceilings cobwebbed, and the light patter of a distant shower echoes all the way down them.  
  
Ron enters the locker room, unsurprised Malfoy’s slammed it with a few robust cleaning spells before stepping foot inside. Weeds still spring up through the cracks in the foundation, but the tiles gleam, and the teal paint on the lockers is unscathed, the benches unbroken, and only a few rogue dust motes dance in the slants of light streaming in from the recessed cutouts in the ceiling. Steam billows around Ron’s ankles, and the humidity finds him as quickly as the cold outside had.  
  
He calls out happily, “Hope you’re not in here being even more of a melodramatic egg.” Malfoy had missed out by a bowtruckle’s finger on that second match, the snitch’s wings fluttering against his fingertips before Harry had snatched it out from under them, and he’d been, well… a melodramatic egg about it. To the surprise of no one.  
  
Malfoy offers a low hum under his breath in response, to show Ron his presence has been acknowledged, not necessarily that he’s been heard.  
  
“Think you owe me a cuppa,” Ron says blithely, frowning to amend, “Well, think you owe _everyone_ a cuppa, but I’m the only one still around, so you’ve lucked out.” Malfoy doesn’t engage, and Ron says more seriously, “You keep acting the prat, and Harry’s not going to be so keen on inviting you back, y’know?”  
  
There might be some genuine concern stirring about with the insult there. This thing with Malfoy only works because Ron doesn’t have to keep the rest of his life walled off from him, the way he’d had to do when they were still finding their legs. Going back to that would be too impossible to sustain, and Malfoy would go from a mostly-mate to a mostly-stranger.  
  
Ron’s disappointed in himself to find that would bother him. Malfoy’s never going to be easy to swallow, abrasive on his best days, Ron just needs him not to be repulsive on his worst. The gentle _shhhh_ of the shower is doing the work of easing the tension in Ron’s shoulders, but he does his best to hold onto it. He already lets Malfoy get away with murder as it is—or so Harry’s said.  
  
The echo of a scoff is nearly lost to the smack of water on tile, and at least Ron can be sure now that Malfoy hasn’t fallen asleep and drowned standing up. That old familiar sneer laces a murmur Ron can’t quite make out, that almost no-longer-familiar sound. Ron would love to be rid of it entirely. Malfoy says louder, and more snidely, “I’ve only bothered _the help_ then.”  
  
It shouldn’t get to him.  
  
It does.  
  
And Malfoy’s said it because he knew it would.  
  
Ron set down his armour a while ago with him, trusting Malfoy not to bleed him dry. Not his first mistake. He scowls, hard enough he can feel the muscles of his mouth straining, and the deep divot where his brow is furrowing.  
  
He knows—or, well, he’s really rather probably pretty sure that Malfoy’s only cranky, taking out his rage at Harry besting him, at this group of mates that includes none of his own, and his teasing has taken on a meaner edge because of it. But it’s those comments that make Ron’s bones rattle. The ones that remind him he’s not much more than a side character in his own life. “Fuck you,” Ron says back shakily, too low to be heard.  
  
He can bite back, make it worse, or he can take a step back. He chooses the latter, knowing he won’t be in contact with Malfoy for a week or two, at least until his blood has stopped boiling, and the heat doesn’t automatically rise to his face when he thinks of him. It’s not the first time, and he doubts it’ll be the last.  
  
He tears out of his gear, glad to be able to grip and grind as he does, kicking out of his trainers and slamming into lockers with the rubber soles and his own elbow. He’s too furious to feel the pain of it.  
  
“Now who’s throwing the tantrum?”  
  
Ron startles, Malfoy getting the jump on him since the shower is still a soothing sound in the background. His skin is the kind of pale that looks inherently bruisable, soft and pregnable. Water beads on his thin chest, drips from the sodden ends of his wet-dark hair.  
  
He wears his nakedness the same way he does his designer fashion: at home in it. Pale curls of chest hair catch the light, along with the scars of Harry’s _Sectumsempra_ curse, both otherwise invisible to the eye. His bare feet are long and knobby, and Ron likes the look of them, the way they make him seem less sacrosanct.  
  
His stomach is flat and lacking the convexity that comes from being thin but indolent, which Ron realises he expects only when it isn’t there. Instead there’s the barest hint of definition and no pooch at all. The hair under his navel is the darkest on him, and his prick is soft and pink, his thighs unexpectedly the thickest, most muscular part of him, and Ron absentmindedly wonders how that’s come about. Gripping a broom might lead to that level of definition, but Malfoy’s told him only this morning he doesn’t get to practice much.  
  
Ron shakes his head, abruptly rather tired. “No tantrum, mate. You’ve made your point.”  
  
Malfoy crosses his arms over his chest defensively, clutches his bicep tight enough it makes his skin pink up. He releases it the moment he realises. There’s nothing that skin won’t show, and Ron can see what a challenge this conversation will be for him. Malfoy breathes out a few times like he’s decided what there is to say between them, twice, four times, then curtly does an about face with: “Fine.”  
  
He won’t apologise, but Ron knew that already. For whatever reason, Malfoy thinks he has some high ground. Likely over some imagined slight Ron couldn’t begin to comprehend and that will never be explained. Because one thing about Malfoy hasn’t changed: he’s still pretending to be untouchable.  
  
He’s not though. Ron can see the struggle to keep his expression clear, his brows slanting together before he forces them back up and apart, the corner of his mouth twitching, doing everything he can not to flush any part of him.  
  
Ron shouldn’t break the stalemate, but feeling superior won’t feel as good in a few days as having been the bigger person will. He knows from experience. “You still owe me a cuppa,” he mutters.  
  
The rigidity of Malfoy’s spine eases, and he smirks, hesitantly, then wider when it doesn’t provoke anything. “You’re the one with the posh Ministry job, Weasley.” He thinks Ron works in Magical Games and Sports, because Ron’s implied he works in Magical Games and Sports.  
  
Ron snorts, unlacing his leathers and shoving them down. A quick wash under warm water will get rid of the last lingering toxicity of Malfoy’s taunt, and he can start making it up with a late lunch, which they both know Malfoy will foot the bill for.  
  
“ _Salazar_.” The breathy voice is soft and unfamiliar, and Ron looks up to find Malfoy staring, his lips parted and eyes glazed.  
  
Ron shuffles uncomfortably. “What?” He’s gone from a complete void of self-consciousness to enough to fill a small country. He’s seen Malfoy starkers on more than one occasion—though rarely as in-depth as this—unsurprising for a modern day Narcissus who thinks of time as merely a suggestion he’s free to ignore, but it’s the first time Ron’s had cause to doff his kit in Malfoy’s presence.  
  
Ron knows he’s endless constellations of freckles, red all over where he isn’t pale (odd patches of sun-pink skin on his calves, forearms, neck) and never as buff as he would like, but he didn’t think he had anything to be embarrassed over. Though now his hatred of his lanky frame from his school days is slamming back with brute force.  
  
It takes Ron a moment longer, only when he’s worked up the nerve to try to eyeball Malfoy back, to realise that Malfoy’s gaze isn’t roaming, and it’s also nowhere near his face. Ron makes some awful squawking sound and tries to say _words_ , but can’t, he’s so bloody mortified.  
  
Malfoy swallows. Roughly. “Fucking hell.” His throat scratches over the words, and he shakes his head. His voice is like nothing Ron’s ever heard before, and it’s more than a bit unsettling. Ron _knows_ this man in front of him, he’s had to—the only way to avoid a viper strike is to know the telegraph that comes before it, and Ron _does_. He’s studied Malfoy like he’s studied no one else in his life. His voice is still that dark, coiling smoke when he says, “I suspected you were hung like a hippogriff, but even I couldn’t have guessed this.”  
  
 _Godric’s gonads_.  
  
Ron would like to _die_ , his cheeks are so warm that his hairline’s starting to trickle sweat. His hands block Malfoy’s view independently of his brain, and he sucks in a sharp breath. No bloke’s ever commented on his bits before—not even Seamus, whose relationship with ‘appropriate’ goes a bit beyond estranged—and Ron has no idea what to do, or say.  
  
He’s always been, well, a bit… _bigger_ than what seemed to pass for normal, but not even his brothers had confronted him on that directly.  
  
Malfoy’s still staring, and Ron’s still slowly melting. “Maybe stop _staring_?”  
  
Malfoy’s gaze pulls up as though he’s been released from a nasty _Imperio_ , and he nods carefully. “Right, there’s something to be done, isn’t there?”  
  
Ron blinks at him for a long moment before his mind clears. There is? Shower, lunch—yes, there are some things to be done. He moves to open the locker behind him, hiding his burning face to check for a towel, when Malfoy interrupts with a click of his tongue.  
  
“You poor, unfortunate heterosexual man,” he says, as though this entire state of affairs has left him more than disillusioned. Ron half turns, and Malfoy’s entire body is regretful, from his rounded shoulders to his twitching calf. He nods to Ron’s newly cupped hands. “What have you even done with that in the past?” Before Ron can answer, Malfoy offers a pronounced frown. “Have you ever gotten it all in a girl’s twat?”  
  
Ron chokes on nothing. “What?” It’s a squeak, and it’s mortifying. Why won’t this _end_?  
  
Malfoy raises an eyebrow, trying to look encouraging, like a mind healer inviting a patient to spill all their darkest secrets.  
  
Malfoy knows his sexual history, not in detail but in partners. He knows exactly which birds he’s asking about, and Ron feels like his skin has shrunk, too small for his body. “Classy, Malfoy,” he mutters under his breath, hoping it’s enough of a misdirection, or a response, that it’ll derail this conversation.  
  
It doesn’t. Malfoy’s patiently waiting. The only patience Ron’s _ever_ seen him display. His eyes are watchful and unnerving.  
  
Ron doesn’t spout off about his sex life—the polar opposite of Malfoy that way, who lives exactly the hedonistic, entitled lifestyle Ron had expected of him, and as unashamedly as Ron had expected him to. He gives details and ratings and tips, and Ron gives back nothing but an attentive, unflinching audience. First, because he thought Malfoy was trying to shock him, and he wouldn’t dare give him the satisfaction of achieving it, and then, realising that was just Malfoy’s way, because he liked that Malfoy didn’t put limits on their friendship.  
  
Malfoy’s always been free with his _own_ exploits, but Ron’s never heard about anyone else’s from him, which means if he could work up the nerve to say it, it’s not likely to make its way to anyone else. He chews the inside of his cheek. “No,” he breathes out roughly, “I haven’t, all right?”  
  
He expects that’ll be the end of it, or close to, but Malfoy looks like he’s just been told his entire vault’s not only been emptied, but sunk into the Hogwarts’ lake to be the filling in a treasure chest decoration for the Giant Squid. “Of course it’s not _all right_.” He nearly sounds righteous, like he’s about to take down Voldemort—not that he would’ve. Apparently what he cares for, the thing that’ll make him rally and stir for a fight, is underappreciated dicks. “It’s a bloody tragedy is what it is.”  
  
He’s in front of Ron in a heartbeat, shoving his shoulder into cold metal, pushing him back so he can step forward, sinking onto the bench directly in front of his crotch.  
  
“Wh-wh—” It’s a sputtering, stupid sound tripping up his mouth, and the absolute best he can do in the moment.  
  
Malfoy flashes him an impatient look, as though he hasn’t the time for questions—or even would-be questions—with such obvious answers. “Well I’m not getting on my knees for you, certainly,” there’s just a hint of his familiar sneering drawl before his eyes fall and he licks his lip, swallowing, “but a cock like this deserves to be worshiped, and I haven’t had a gag reflex since I was sixteen.”  
  
There’s no ceremony to it. No suspended, tender moment. Just Malfoy’s hand gripping the base of his prick before taking Ron into his mouth.  
  
Ron’s knees buckle instantaneously, and only Malfoy’s attentiveness keeps that from becoming a disaster, his mouth following the flux of Ron’s body until he gets his feet under himself again. There’s wet and heat and no foreplay, and the head breaches Malfoy’s throat, and it works against his prick until Ron’s harder than he’s ever been, and deeper inside anyone than he’s ever been, and how in the bloody hell is Malfoy doing that and still _breathing_?  
  
Ron stares down at him. The harshness of Malfoy’s breaths through his nose, the urging of his hands and his throat, the skill of him. If Ron had ever thought about Malfoy in bed, this isn’t what he would’ve come up with. He would’ve expected almost a prudishness, a need for coaxing, an ambivalence to his partner’s pleasure. But there’s almost a ruthlessness about him, not to mention confidence.  
  
It’s like Ron’s found the thing Malfoy’s best at, and it’s strange how expanding the breadth of his knowledge on Malfoy makes Ron’s cock throb harder and his stomach a heaving tangle. His hands hover above Malfoy’s slick hair before redirecting to the top of the lockers. He grips so tightly the metal is likely denting his palms, and he thrusts before he can stop himself.  
  
Malfoy hums in welcome. He _hums_ , and it rattles along the plane of every one of Ron’s bones.  
  
Strong fingers find the tops of Ron’s thighs, his hips, pulling him in further, like there’s no end to how far Ron can go, and it shouldn’t be possible, but Malfoy isn’t choking. He swallows once Ron’s seated, swallows and swallows and _swallows_ , and Ron wants to _cry_ at how good it feels.  
  
“Godric’s gobstones, don’t stop.” Fuck, that was a _whine_. Ron’s never whined during sex before.  
  
Malfoy doesn’t need the direction. He shows no signs of stopping. He pulls back, grabs Ron’s arse cheek when he doesn’t thrust back in, twigging him to the fact that he’s meant to be helping with the rhythm.  
  
Ron takes one hand down from the locker, puts it along the front of Malfoy’s neck, his fingers across the width of it so he can feel himself as he slides in, and for the first time he feels what Muggleborns must when they first see Hogwarts, when they wave a wand for the first time, when their toes first brush grass from the back of a broom. It’s _this_ feeling, because this is fucking magic, and he’s not willing to lose it as fast as he’s threatening to.  
  
He holds a staying palm to Malfoy’s shoulder and pulls out, and Malfoy’s groan is dragged up deep from his diaphragm, an uninhibited sound, but Ron’ll never be satisfied with just this. Not now. And what Malfoy had asked, what he implied he might’ve wanted... Ron threads his fingers into the curls— _soft_ , wet, silky—and Malfoy follows his tugging grip, and Ron yanks him closer, lifts him up, and for once he’s glad this poncey git is all slim pretension and thick thighs.  
  
They slide together, and Malfoy’s cock notches against his hip, and Ron braces him up against the lockers, swallows the hiss Malfoy makes when the cool metal meets his back, and they could warm it up, Ron’s sure they could warm it up, but he hasn’t got the patience for that, and Malfoy will, without fail, start to complain soon. He presses his cock to Malfoy’s stomach, lets him feel the heat and the pulsing _want_ of it, and nearly can’t move away before he forces himself back a step.  
  
He smacks an arse cheek as he lets Malfoy down, though feeling that writhing, _infuriating_ , attention-grabbing body up against his, chest-to-chest, thighs-on-thighs… Yeah, he’s having that again. He doesn’t check in with Malfoy, instead kicking about for—ah, there it is. A flick of his wand, a muttered spell, and all the showers turn on at the same moment. Ron looks up, catching Malfoy’s eyes with his glazed over ones, and he sees Malfoy’s gleaned his intentions.  
  
Malfoy turns to saunter over to the showers, like Ron has any patience for that. He’s hard, and Malfoy’s made him some bloody promises about that, whether he knows it or not. And Merlin, but he’s got a nice arse. Ron’s never noticed before, and he’s not sure how he’s missed it, especially when he’s made a point of noticing everything else about this git. But the thighs are necessary because the arse is, well, _round_ , and Ron suddenly gets it. Why Malfoy never has any trouble pulling. He can’t imagine being able to resist this.  
  
He grabs Malfoy by the hips, stopping that seductive swagger in its tracks, burying his face in Malfoy’s neck, caressing down to heft up both cheeks, squeezing, and working on getting them both to the warm spray as quickly as he can without running. Malfoy shoves him off and turns around like he wants to keep his distance, but can’t help pulling closer. “Lube, a wand or— _Accio_ lube,” he gasps into Ron’s skin, grabbing at his hips, and at least four lockers belch up bottles at their feet.  
  
And it shouldn’t have worked, because Malfoy is full-on shite at wandless magic, but it does because he wants to get fucked more than he wants to let his complexes get in the way.  
  
Ron kicks one into the spray with the side of his foot, hefts Malfoy back up by those gorgeous, solid thighs, and presses him into tile that’s a warm, wet, welcome surface, and Malfoy pulls back, staring at him searchingly, eyes on the freckles rather than Ron’s gaze, and then he leans forward. His lips drag against Ron’s cheek and nose before finding his mouth.  
  
The kiss is soul-sucking and intense, and Malfoy’s tongue is in his mouth, his hand squeezing the back of Ron’s neck, his thighs squeezing Ron’s hips, their bodies wet and sliding together in all the best ways and Ron kisses him and kisses him and kisses him until his brain is lost to it. He’s no longer thinking, he’s just shoving into Malfoy with his hips and his tongue and his want, fingers sliding over the soft globes of Malfoy’s arse.  
  
Malfoy says, “Finger me,” into his mouth, and Ron knows how to do that, thank Merlin, and he’s glad they’re not starting this with him already a few leagues behind.  
  
He only lets go of one leg as he fumbles for the bottle at their feet. He’s half sure it _jumps_ into his hand, and then he’s pressing up against Malfoy again. His mouth trailing Malfoy’s bicep, tasting water and skin, his cock twitching against Malfoy’s stomach, and slick fingers circling Malfoy’s hole, pushing in.  
  
He feels like he’s barely found his centre when Malfoy pulls back, all panting breaths and demanding little toad that he is, snarking, “Better, do it better,” and Ron growls at him. Malfoy smirks, and Ron thrusts his fingers in harder, curling, and Malfoy’s whole body shudders against him, thighs clenching, and arms tightening over his slick shoulders.  
  
“You’ve found the best,” Ron says, not feeling near as arrogant as he sounds, but knowing it’ll shut Malfoy up for at least the moment.  
  
It works. Sort of.  
  
Malfoy does keep mum, but only after Ron shoots him a glare when he opens his haughty, stupid mouth. He rubs his cock against Ron’s stomach, lifts a hand off his shoulders to wrap it around the shower head, and glides the other up Ron’s neck, into his hair, and yanks hard enough to drag Ron’s head back.  
  
Malfoy grinds harder, and Ron suspects he is exactly the kind of selfish arsehole who’ll just get himself off. He wants to grip Malfoy’s hands, pull them away from his cock so he can’t finish, but Malfoy’s not using his hands, he’s using Ron’s body. But Ron’s hand is already on the move, and he ends up resting it on Malfoy’s neck again, enough to grip but not enough to apply much pressure. “Gonna fuck you,” Ron tells him through gritted teeth because Malfoy’s grinding is brushing the head of his cock over and over again, and it’s red and _impatient_.  
  
His fingers still have enough slick on them to coat his prick and Malfoy puts subtle pressure on the back of his neck, fingers gripping, heel of his palm digging, and Ron presses inside. One squeeze of Malfoy’s hand ends up about equivalent to one inch, but Malfoy hadn’t been lying. Once Ron starts sliding in, he doesn’t stop, and Malfoy takes it all, and Ron’s breath spasms in his chest and he almost loses the ability to hold Malfoy’s weight.  
  
Ron presses him harder into the tile, and it changes the angle, and they both groan. Ron can’t even thrust, his chest is pinched too tight, his thighs trembling, his cock pulsing, and he wants to say _all kinds_ of stupid things right now. He’s _inside_ Malfoy, fully and completely inside, and Ron gets it in that moment, why Malfoy had acted like it was a crime that it had never happened before. Water pounds down on them, and Ron tries to get a hold of a body—of _his_ body—that is trying to shake apart.  
  
Malfoy doesn’t look much better. Every breath is a gasping one, and his nails are raking across Ron’s shoulder now they’ve abandoned the back of his neck. “Something about fucking me,” Malfoy tries to taunt, but it’s breathless and pleading.  
  
Ron’s first thrusts are short and far between, and he has to slam his fist into the ceramic above Malfoy’s shoulder after the second makes his bollocks pull up. There’s no way he’s losing it this quickly, not when… not…  
  
No bloody way is he letting himself even think those thoughts, lest they wander out of his mouth, and he’s biting his tongue _hard_ to make sure they don’t.  
  
Malfoy’s ankles cross in the small of his back, and he lifts himself, and hell, Ron wouldn’t have thought he had the strength for that, but when Malfoy wants a fuck apparently he’ll defy all kinds of physical and magical limits.  
  
Ron can’t keep on with the short thrusts forever, and his strokes go long and rhythmic, and then desperate and uncoordinated, because every part of his body is aching and weak for release, and it’s a race between coming and his legs giving out, and his mouth is full of things he shouldn’t say, things he doesn’t even mean except for in this moment, and Malfoy’s eyes are glassy, and Ron kisses him, hard, shoving his head back into wet tile as he force-feeds him all the idiot declarations trying to escape him.  
  
Malfoy rides back against each crest, and his body under Ron’s hands is soft and hard and wiry and muscular, and Ron’s fingers skate over the contractions of his abdomen, over the contradictions that are _Malfoy_. His tongue finds the raised vein along the side of his neck and traces it slowly, and has this smug pillock always been such a work of fucking art? A marble bust come to life, a god in human proportions with insatiable appetites and passions? Weirdly, Ron wants to feed him a peach or a pomegranate and watch the juice drip down his neck, and this is exactly the kind of nonsense he’s trying to keep from spilling out his mouth.  
  
Malfoy’s curly hair is wet but still smooth as silk, and Ron’s hands plunge into it, and somehow watching his fingers sink in at the same moment he feels his cock reach the hilt again has his toes curling, and Malfoy gasps a quick, half-slurred protection charm, and Ron comes, grabbing Malfoy by the arse cheek, inadvertently pulling his head into the curve of Ron’s shoulder, and his legs are made of jam and sink out from under him.  
  
He manages to fall to his knees rather than altogether, and Malfoy pushes him back, heels of his palms on Ron’s shoulders, and Ron obediently collapses. Malfoy straddles him, strokes himself once, twice, and comes all over Ron’s stomach and chest, and Ron wants to marvel at it, but the water is now a nuisance, washing away what he wants to savour.  
  
Malfoy leans over him, hair and nose and lips dripping onto Ron’s face, and he’s panting and _sexy_ and frowning. His lips twisting unhappily.  
  
Ron blinks up at him, his limbs too heavy to be moved in the slightest, his strength wrung from him, wrested away, leeched out of him by the incubus above him. It’s starting to crystallise now, what exactly just bloody happened, and he’s nearly mirroring Malfoy’s entire expression as he bursts out, “Fucking hell.”  
  
Malfoy dips his chin in acknowledgement, says nearly under his breath, “I know. Truly unfortunate.” He stares at Ron for a longer moment before sitting up. Ron’s still hard inside him and not as uninterested in the movement as he should be. Malfoy’s solid and warm, and Ron’s hands want to slide over his thighs, his hips, because they remember how soft and invigorating that skin is.  
  
Instead Ron half-laughs, runs a hand through his hair. “The best bloody sex of my life,” he says wildly, disbelief giving the declaration a ringing sort of quality. This can’t be happening.  
  
Malfoy sighs. Heavily. He even slumps a little with it; it feels bloody good. “And mine.”  
  
Ron can’t bring himself to ignore the irony, and it’s coating his words as he adds, “With you.”  
  
His gaze had skated over the ink on Malfoy’s forearms a few times in the shower, but the un-Marked one finally catches his eye now that it’s planted directly at the side of his head, and he realises the image has… changed. Every available millimetre is now flowering, colourful petals furling and unfurling in a pleasant, unseen breeze, bees circling busily to pollinate them. Ron watches for longer than he means to.  
  
Malfoy sighs. Again. Bringing Ron back around. “Yes, unfortunate.”  
  
Ron lifts up onto his elbows to glare at Malfoy; that feels even better and he takes a moment to catch his breath. Accusation laces his words. “Bloody hell, you just had to slag it up with me, did you?”  
  
Malfoy doesn’t even have the decency to look apologetic. Instead he gives Ron a condescending look and says unabashedly, “Have you seen your cock? Yes, I did _have_ to.”  
  
The way he says it, hell, it sends a shiver of want down Ron’s spine. Malfoy’s thighs are still twitching with the aftershocks of his orgasm, the way Ron’s chest is with his. He’s long and lean, and his cock is soft, satisfied, and nestled against Ron’s stomach. There’s a sheen on his skin from the water, and a cocky smirk on his arrogant face that Ron wants to erase with his dick.  
  
Ron groans, drops down onto his back again. There’s no denying it. “I want to fuck you again.” He tugs at his own hair. “I hate you.”  
  
The heels of Ron’s palms are digging into his eyelids when he feels soft skin brush over his chest, and he trembles involuntarily. He drops one hand without opening his eyes, feels Malfoy’s knee at his side, his thigh as he shifts closer and Ron’s hand shifts with it.  
  
“Mm, I hate you too.” There’s a sudden, alarming sensation of pressure, and instinctually, Ron knows he’s no longer in the locker room. The air has changed, the open quality to the room is gone, and there’s a softness pillowing his back. He opens his eyes to a bedroom, but doesn’t have time to form more impressions than dark and firelit and obsessively neat before Malfoy’s grabbing at him and saying, “Angle your hips a bit more this time. I am trying to _lead_ you to stop you simply jackrabbiting like an imbecile.”  
  
And Ron may be a bit disoriented, but he’s still not going to be slagged off without answering back. “Maybe I don’t give a knut if you get off.” But he does. Of course he does. He’s never been selfish in that way, and he’s half surprised that he still cares given it’s Malfoy, but he does. Apparently.  
  
If only because making him come means he’ll shut up for a minute.  
  
A mattress spreads out under his fingers, pillows stack up at his back, and Ron blindly reaches behind himself, gripping a pillow that turns out to be as big as his torso. He slides his hands up the back of Malfoy’s thighs, moving to lift him on top of it when Malfoy shoves him off, spits, “If you ever intend to have a go at my arse again, I’d suggest you start.”  
  
Ron clamps down on a retort, because it’s not worth the risk, is it? Even if Malfoy doesn’t mean it, Ron’s never come that hard or felt that good, and he’s not willing to win the tête-à-tête if the exchange is never shagging Malfoy again. Which is bloody demoralising—Malfoy having the upper hand with anything, anywhere—as he’s exactly the kind of prick who could do some real damage with it.  
  
Malfoy moves the pillow out of the way, shoves Ron back, far enough that he slips out of him with a whimper, and shakes his head. “No, none of this deep eye contact, loving intimacy bollocks. Fuck me on my knees; break me in two.” He positions that glorious arse a hair’s breadth away from Ron’s pelvis, waits for Ron to grab his hip—he can’t do anything else, the _sight_ of this alone is nearly crippling—and pull him back into the throb of his cock. It lines up with the crack of Malfoy’s arse, and Ron groans low in his throat. Malfoy turns his head just enough that he can quirk a brow at Ron. He says breathlessly, “I want to be able to taste you on my tongue, Weasley.”  
  
Ron stares at him a moment too long, long enough that Malfoy gets impatient and sinks to his elbows, shoving his arse back harder, and Ron says stupidly, “Bloody hell, I think I might be in love with you.”

* * *

“ _What_ , Weasley?” Ndari pronounces it ‘wot,’ and with a dedicated huff, breath lifting the bangs from her forehead.  
  
Ron quickly, and poorly, pretends he isn’t staring at her. But he is, of course, because Ndari is the person he tells things that he can’t tell anyone else.  
  
By necessity.  
  
The kind of friendships that form in the bowels of the Ministry amongst people who legitimately can’t speak about their profession to any person outside of said bowels are built on foundations of secrets and carpets of secrets and beds of secrets.  
  
And Ron’s got one of those. Another of those, rather. A dungeon of a secret to add to Ndari’s entire manor’s worth on him, which would be terrifying but for the fact that Ron’s got the same amount on her.  
  
He knows the earrings she wears every day, in the crude shape of India, are chock-full of all kinds of illegal surveilling charms, because her homesickness has become a real monster over the years. Feed them a name, and you get a local time, an address, an activity, and a mood. He knows she’s closest to her youngest sister and that she doesn’t like her second eldest brother at all. He knows that most of her family have no idea she’s a witch, but she told her nan last holiday, flouting the Statute of Secrecy. He knows that her father died when she was nine in a factory accident that’s been hushed up by everyone, including her mum, and he knows if they sit down to a game of chess, Ron will win three for every ninety she does.  
  
She doesn’t ask him again because she already knows, and has known since he walked in eight minutes ago, that he’s dying to vomit this up at her feet, and he’ll do it sooner or later.  
  
His desk isn’t distracting enough, just a twitching pile of memos, a bundle of coded dossiers all related to the Dowripple estate, and a few wandering chess pieces. Ron’s eyes slip over to investigate Clyborne’s, Owens’, and Quereshi’s, the other desks clumped together with his, but they’ve all remembered their glamours and appear to be nothing but ruthlessly empty.  
  
He glances up to the low ceiling and wonders for the billionth time why they would’ve outfitted them with forest green carpets and dark wooden desks and grey-verging-on-navy walls if they hadn’t wanted them to feel a bit trapped down here. Every other floor of the Ministry is made to look bright and breathable, but the Unspeakables appear to never want an employee to forget the impossible weight that hangs over them.  
  
Ron feels it pressing into him especially hard now and he turns back to Ndari, who has been unapologetically waiting for him to. “Remember,” his voice is much higher than he means it to be, and he fiddles with one of the waddling bishops on his desk, “ages back, when I told you about the living nightmare that darkened my school days, and how we were giving it a go, trying to be mates and all? Or at least not actively violent anymore?”  
  
Ndari probably strains a muscle with how intensely focussed she gets, paper sliding from out of her gone-limp fingers. “Has it gone pear-shaped then?” She checks a watch she keeps forgetting to put batteries in. Ron’s offered to spell it to tick eternally, and Ndari’s offered him a swift kick to the bollocks for even possibly implying that the Muggle invention was somehow subpar. “And I had a whole year left to win that bet, too.”  
  
“Er, no.” Ron considers, then, “And yeah.” He watches Ndari from his periphery where she’s impatiently awaiting the _more_ that’s coming. “I… I’ve shagged him.”  
  
He closes his eyes hoping it’ll cut off the conjuration of the memory along with the words. But voicing it aloud is practically permission to linger there. To follow the falling bead of water on Malfoy’s clavicle, to remember the press of his skin, the unexpectedly thrilling feel of a hard cock fitted against him.  
  
Something Malfoy couldn’t hide from, even if he’d tried.  
  
He finds Ron attractive, and it’s gratifying as all hell. While their relationship had moved past social classes early on, it still infiltrates their interactions in subtle ways even now, and there is some clout that comes along with _Malfoy_ —in his designer clothes, his could-buy-anyone-he-wanted bank vault, his inherent poshness that has nothing to do with money and everything to do with never having to care about it—being interested in him.  
  
Ndari’s eyes go full bloom, quickly followed by the scrape of her chair as she drags it across the floor to him, uncaring of the way everyone else’s shoulders cringe against the sound. It’s an open floor plan and it carries further than Ron can even glimpse. “Is this a, uh, epiphany-related thing? Sexual epiphany? Like, because he’s a bloke and all?”  
  
It’s nearly embarrassing how long it had taken Ron to realise the _that_ of it. He’s been so focussed on the _Malfoy_ of it all that his sexuality feels like less than an afterthought. He’s still not twisted up over having been with a bloke; he’s twisted up over having been with _this_ bloke.  
  
He doesn’t know how, exactly, to explain that to Ndari, especially as she only knows his history with Malfoy _as history_ , but he makes a go of it. “I was so focussed on it being _him_ , I didn’t even clock the aberration of it also being _a_ him until later. And.” Ron searches empty air for the right words. “It feels… irrelevant in the face of the rest of it? If his personality wasn’t enough of a turn off, his gender certainly wasn’t going to do it.”  
  
Ndari sits back in her chair, comprehension settling over her dark features. He doubts she _understands_ , but she seems to know what he means. “Well.” She claps her hands together, the noise it makes sharp and cutting. “What’s the plan then?”  
  
Ron’s laugh is the sound a dying phoenix might make. “Right, I should get one of those.”  
  
Ndari doesn’t entertain the notion for even a moment. “ _Please_. The preeminent strategist has a strategy. Let’s hear it then.”  
  
Ron appreciates her faith in him, but after a full four minutes in which he’s said nothing, Ndari’s expression falling farther and farther, she throws herself back in her chair and huffs. “Well, all right then,” she taps orange-painted nails against the arms of her chair, “what’s the want? In front of you, you’ve got a Time Turner, an untraceable _Obliviate_ which will disappear, let’s say, the last five years, and the Nightmare’s floo coordinates, which do you choose?”  
  
It’s easier to think of, broken down this way, and Ron shoots Ndari a grateful look. Pretend it never happened and salvage what they can of their friendship, erase Malfoy from his life entirely, or move forward with the shagging still very much in play.  
  
The Time Turner’s out before Ron can even turn it over in his mind. There’s certainly no way back from it, no way to pretend he hasn’t felt the hill of his own cock lodged in Malfoy’s throat, that he hasn’t felt those thick thighs clench his hips, or the he hasn’t been so deep inside him that he lost all fine motor control. He can’t sit across from Malfoy and pretend he hasn’t seen his tattoo in full bloom.  
  
Which means the next viable option is _not_ sitting across from Malfoy again. Letting a friendship that was likely never meant to happen fizzle and fade. Truthfully, it’s been more of an effort to keep it alive than to let it die to begin with.  
  
Or.  
  
Keep seeing Malfoy and accept this is likely to become something that _happens_ between them.  
  
All Ron knows for certain is the first option definitely isn’t one. He could easily stop inviting Malfoy out, though. No one naturally thinks to include him amongst Ron’s mates, and Malfoy certainly doesn’t ever make an effort to include Ron in anything he does.  
  
But, well.  
  
It hadn’t been an accident, this whole thing with them. They’ve lasted this long because they get something out of the time they spend together. For Ron, it’s a mirror.  
  
He’s best mates with Harry and Hermione and there’s nothing about them that’s lost or left behind, but Malfoy is. And so is Ron.  
  
He’s been an Unspeakable for nearly six years, after campaigning for it hard, and realised only a few months in… he’d never really wanted the job. He’s mates with legitimate _historical figures_. Harry and Hermione are going to be talked about for centuries after they’re gone. They’re going to be woven into the fabric of magic and leave behind unshakable legacies. While even in Ron’s own family, the more banal accomplishments he’s managed—becoming Prefect, making the Quidditch team—have all been done before, and better.  
  
Then he’d become an Unspeakable, a profession with respect and gravitas attached to just the title itself… and he couldn’t tell anyone about it. Which led him to realise, he didn’t want to be important and unique and special without an audience to it. Which led to the yet more painful revelation that he was living his life for other people’s perceptions, and how bloody sad was that?  
  
He’s accomplished his dream job only to find out it’s the dream that needs work. He’s not unhappy with being an Unspeakable. He genuinely likes it. It’s just not the thing that’s going to make him a more fulfilled person than he was before it. Harry and Hermione both have this _wholeness_ about them, because they’re doing what they genuinely want and love, and Ron hasn’t even gotten past the _identification_ of what causes the want and will bring the love yet.  
  
And you know who that reminded him of?  
  
Malfoy’s still working it out too, and that makes Ron feel a lot less alone and a lot less like he’s doing his life all wrong. And maybe it’s that they _both_ are, but at least they have company in the failure now.  
  
He looks up at Ndari, pained. “I don’t know.”  
  
She eyes him for a long moment, expression searching, and then starts to scrape her chair back over to her desk, raising her voice to say over the screech, “Yeah, you do.”

* * *

He does.  
  
Malfoy opens the door to his flat in a soft-looking cream jumper, bare feet, and dark trousers. He blinks, slides on a smirk, and says, “Didn’t expect you.” The smirk’s been hastily constructed and it’s an uneasy slash across Malfoy’s face. There’s no arrogance and second nature to it, instead it’s bristling and strained.  
  
Ron tries to gauge the truth of those words, searching the squint of Malfoy’s eyes and the flare of his nostrils for a hint of what outcome Malfoy’s own calculations might have led him to. It’s his fingers on the doorknob that give him away, the clench of them to stop them from reaching. Relief blooms low and warm in Ron’s gut as he accuses, “You did.”  
  
His thumbs find Malfoy’s hips, gliding over the faint v of his pelvis, sliding up the back of his jumper, palms splayed over the spread of his back, down to skim his arse and clench into the heft of his thighs, to lift them to Ron’s waist.  
  
Malfoy’s parlour is blanketed in shadows, from heavy curtains and dark fabrics and an empty grate, but his wood floor is welcoming as Ron gets him down on it, yanking at their clothes, fumbling a hasty protection charm, and sinking into Malfoy while Malfoy gasps and grabs at him, Ron’s trousers still half on.  
  
They’ll both have bruises come tomorrow and Ron would feel embarrassed about it being over nearly as quickly as it started, but Malfoy’s come just as fast.  
  
He rolls onto his back, catching his breath, and watching the abstract art above Malfoy’s mantel, the shapes moving in a slow and bewitching roll, the colours alternating as they somersault. It’s starting to make him feel dizzy so his gaze drifts to the metal and wood bookshelves by the window, glancing at the rows upon rows of drab spines. He clears his throat, doesn’t look back at Malfoy. “Guess we’re shagging now, then.”  
  
“Mm, I suppose.”  
  
Malfoy doesn’t exactly sound thrilled and Ron turns his head to look at him, considers pressing his warm cheek into the cool floor beneath it but doesn’t. “Do you not want to?”  
  
Malfoy shakes his head, says with a lazy wave of his hand, “I only assumed you’d be overly concerned with your straightness, or your anti-Malfoyness, or your almost certainly Granger-adorned future for this to ever come as far as it has.” His hand searches about for his trousers, finding them under the blocky coffee table, and pulls a pack of fags from the pocket.  
  
A serpentine trail of smoke rises from the lit end. Ron watches the breaths move through Malfoy’s chest, then follows them with his hand, which pauses just above Malfoy’s navel. They both watch his still fingers. “I’m bisexual, you can deepthroat my dick, and Hermione’s the love of my life. Albeit platonically.” Ron brushes a thumb over Malfoy’s lip, catches his eye. “And I want you. Good enough?”  
  
Malfoy drags deeply on his fag, a ribbon of ash forming at its tip, and his smirk is an easy one when he releases the smoke. “It’ll do.”

* * *

Ron paces the sidewalk, his breath a visible spectre trailing him, his fingertips cold where his jumper doesn’t reach. The gutters are thick with slush, the concrete a blinding dazzle in the sunlight. There’s no one making him late now, aside from his own anxiety. He blows hot breath onto his bare hands, idly wishing for a fag.  
  
He doesn’t smoke, but Malfoy does, and Ron could use a bit of the calm it seems to give him. Or maybe he could just use Malfoy, who’s blunt and unapologetic and would get this over with in a minute and a half without the slightest bit of hesitation.  
  
The pub windows are only frosted round the outermost edges, framing the claustrophobic middle, the small tables and high stools where Ron’s mates are back-slapping and drink-clinking. He can even see Harry’s arm around Gin’s waist, where she’s deep in conversation with Ndari. Neville’s got Harry’s ear and Quereshi is sandwiched between Seamus and George, not looking near as uneasy as he should about it.  
  
The cold is starting to snake up Ron’s legs, wending beneath his khaki chino’s and even finding the thinner patches of leather on his trainers. He’s not wearing socks, couldn’t find any clean ones in his flat, and his ankles feel like ice.  
  
Surely saying the words, ‘I’m shagging Malfoy,’ can’t be worse than freezing to death?  
  
Ron hops back and forth on his feet, watching as Muggles leave behind the warmth of the brightly lit pub. It’s all pale yellows and ash wood and inviting and maybe Ron could just grab a pint and keep his mouth shut.  
  
Harry lets out a hearty laugh Ron can’t hear, and Ron deflates. It’s got to be done, and today.  
  
He and Harry don’t have boundaries, nearly two decades of friendship and there’s no longer a need for them. Ron knows Harry is dating his sister and so he knocks, as far as Harry knows Ron’s dating no one and so he doesn’t.  
  
It’s nearly led to him getting an eyeful more than once. The saving grace of him is that Harry’s not quiet, living in a cupboard and trying his hardest at pretending himself into nonexistence for eleven years means he stomps around, loud and proud of it.  
  
Ron loves him for it, even more so these days.  
  
If that fails though, if Harry finds out about all this by barging in, it’s going to crush him and Ron would do just about anything to keep that from happening. Including saying the world’s most impossible sentence to the person who’ll want to hear it the least. He takes a breath, steeling himself. Harry loves him unconditionally and Ron could friggin’ _marry_ the ferret and still not lose that love, so he’s just going to buck up, do the hard thing, and accept how bloody awkward it’ll probably make things for the next while.  
  
Besides, Harry did the hard thing and told Ron about Ginny. That’s an example to follow if ever there were one.  
  
Ron’s rewarded with warmth after he’s taken the plunge, as well as a bright and welcoming, “‘Bout time, mate,” from Harry.  
  
Ron wades over to him through the crowd. He’d picked this place because it has wide booths, big enough to fit at least most of them, but midday on a Sunday is more popular than Ron’s anticipated and they’re all taken, so they’ve clustered around a few tables and awkwardly placed seats, mostly milling about and knocking into each other.  
  
Harry slides the rest of his pint towards Ron.  
  
Ron manages not to toss it back immediately, though every fibre of his being wants to. He sips it slow, till he’s downed it all. He clears his throat, and no one looks over but Harry, who does so with a frown like he’s not sure if he heard anything at all, before turning back to Gin. Ron feels light-headed, but there’s no way around this but through. “I’m shagging Malfoy, then.”  
  
It comes out in uneven volumes and the flow of conversation dams as though a flying Ford Anglia has crashed into it. Ron pounds his chest twice, finds a normal modulation for his voice. “Pretty regular.”  
  
He’s not looking at anyone so he has no idea if anyone’s looking at him, but he would have to assume so, since no other sound is being made. “No intention of stoppin’ in the near future either.”  
  
The silence lingers, and it’s the uncomfortable kind, the kind that’s both begging to be—and resisting being—broken.  
  
Neville blunders in with a sword and slices through it with a squeaky, “That’s, uh— _Malfoy_?”  
  
Ron wishes it had been Harry who’d broken in. He can only see Harry’s elbow where he’s looking down at the table and it hasn’t so much as twitched. He strives for casual as he says, “Yeah. Yeah. Our age, boy bits. That’s the one.”  
  
“He’s a Death Eater.”  
  
Ron’s not sure who’s said it, it’s too low, too blank. It’s not an accusation, as far as he can tell, as much as a surprised recollection. He nods, draws his elbows into his chest, forearms on the table and shoulders thrust forward and hunched. “Was one, yeah. Pretty shite at it, because, uh, as noted: he is Malfoy, but can’t refute it.”  
  
A belly bumbles into the table, getting there before the elbows that go with it. Ernie steadies it and says stuffily, a condescending sort of sympathy in his tone, “You’re expecting what here, exactly, Ron? That he’s going to change for you?”  
  
Ron’s never particularly warmed to Ernie, but he’s harmlessly obnoxious rather than malicious and that’s nothing he can’t handle. Besides, the answer to that is easy. “Merlin’s wrinkled bollocks, no. I’m expecting to shag his brains out as often as I can get it up because he’s the best lay I’ve ever had.”  
  
The elbow twitches and Harry says in a dreary, worn down sort of voice, “Way too much information, mate.”  
  
Ron folds in on himself. Bollocks. While he hadn’t expected Harry would be overjoyed with the news, he figured he’d tip more toward indifference than anything. Surely Harry can’t begrudge him finally finding a place to stick his whole dick?  
  
Ron’s made his peace with Harry shagging his bloody _sister_ , after all.  
  
Ron pushes down that particular thought since nothing but defensiveness has brought it to the surface, and that won’t lead to anything good. Unflinching honesty is his best way through, and he trusts the people around him enough to give it. “Listen, I’m tellin’ ya because I’ve not exactly been discreet about it,” truer fuckin’ words, “and I don’t ever rightly intend to be, especially as half the thrill of it is taking him exactly when I want him, seeing as he’s as stupidly horny for it as I am.” He finally lifts his eyes, finding everyone else’s trained on him. He meets them all. “We’re shagging, don’t be shocked by it if you catch us at it. Which you’re quite likely to. End announcement.”  
  
Ron wishes Harry’s pint wasn’t empty so he’d have some cause to break eye contact. But it is. So he sits there, legs bouncing, picking at his thumbnail with his middle finger’s, trying to keep his breathing steady.  
  
A hand finds his shoulder, pauses, then squeezes warmly, and Harry says, “I’m happy for you, mate. Slightly worried about your mental state, but that’s actually bog standard when it comes to you,” a small but genuine smile spreads his lips and he knocks their shoulders together, “and I very much do not need details.”  
  
Ron lets his breath whoosh out of him, feeling his relief all the way down in the tingle of his toes. “A favour I’m more than willing to repay, mate.” He’s grinning back shakily, still sinking back down to equilibrium from the crest of his anxiety.  
  
He’d known it, of course, but it’s still a relief to have it confirmed—he _can’t_ make Harry hate him.  
  
Dean lifts his empty pint glass and says, “Think we all could use another round, eh?”  
  
A hearty, ‘hear, hear,’ goes up around their group and Harry’s shoulder stays pressed against Ron’s, just in case he has need of the support.

* * *

Malfoy’s a warm, lazy weight draped over top of him, his fingers idly turning over Ron’s most recent Weasley jumper, which he’s salvaged from beneath the bed. There’s the familiar gold ‘R’ on the familiar maroon canvas and Malfoy’s frowning over it like he’s pulled it up from a dig site.  
  
Ron clears his throat. It’s rough from what he’s got to say as much as it is from Malfoy’s prick. “I’ve told Harry about this, a few others.”  
  
The flush is still fading from Malfoy’s pale skin, his curls sweat-damp and mussed. He drops the jumper, turning to Ron with a stately curiosity. “Why?”  
  
Ron’s thumbs trace circles through the bristle on Malfoy’s thighs, and they twitch when he presses in against the muscle. “Because we’re reckless shaggers?” He offers with a snort. “How many times have we nearly been caught out now? You’re a bloody exhibitionist, Malfoy.”  
  
“Says the bloke who wanted to shag in the pub toilets,” Malfoy says with a lazy yawn, rolling over onto his back on the floor. They’d gotten close to Ron’s bed, just not… _into_ it.  
  
Yeah, well.  
  
Ron’s hand drops, lazily running the second knuckles of his fingers over Malfoy’s soft prick, not for a reaction as much as because Ron just really likes Malfoy’s prick. Who knew?  
  
Malfoy’s brain seems lethargic and slow, what Ron’s told him still sinking into it. “Pansy would assume it was a joke she didn’t get, laugh uproariously, and change the subject to how we should visit Vienna.” He turns on his side, towards Ron, his thumb tracing an unknowable pattern through the freckles on Ron’s hip, thinking on it. His mouth curves into a dark smile. “If I insist on it, she’ll arrange the whole trip to Austria herself, and I won’t have to lift a finger. When are you free?”  
  
Ron’s hand stills where it is, at the top of Malfoy’s arse cheek, he’s been stroking his skin, dipping into the small of his back, and down again. His fingers squeeze unconsciously. He’s never considered Malfoy might want to tell _his_ mates, at least not… _now_. “Malfoy, tell me you don’t mean to—”  
  
He cuts Ron off with a clipped, “Unlike your collection of Potter sycophants, my circle is much more discerning, and will require actual proof to buy into any of this. You won’t have to do much,” he decides. “Seeing us together might be enough to get my mental health holiday all on its own.”  
  
Ron frowns, his hand dropping away from Malfoy entirely. “Wait. They didn’t know we’d been seeing each other at all, even as mates?”  
  
Malfoy’s brow furrows, perplexed by Ron’s surprise. “Of course not.”  
  
“Oh.” That… stings. They’ve been mates for four bloody _years_ and Malfoy’s never mentioned him to a single other person in his life? Ron feels… small. Inconsequential. It’s a feeling he’s not unused to, but one Malfoy hasn’t made him feel in years. Until now. He’s hurt, beyond it, and there’s an added annoyance that he is. “Right,” he croaks. He wants to get up and leave, but they’re at his flat because they would be, wouldn’t they? Malfoy’s an element to Ron’s life; he can’t believe he’s just now realising the extent to which that’s not reciprocal.  
  
Malfoy must sense his uneasiness because his hands clamp down on Ron’s arms, hold him there. “Tell me you’re not having a fit about this.”  
  
“Ge’roff,” Ron mutters, pushing at Malfoy’s arms halfheartedly. “Still haven’t told Hermione.” Mostly because Ron suspects, and has for some time, that she already knows, and he hasn’t wanted to hear her crow about it. “Should tell her before Harry or Gin can,” he offers as an excuse for his antsiness to leave.  
  
He snatches up the jumper Malfoy’s excavated and is working to button his trousers when Malfoy lays a hand over Ron’s fumbling ones with an exasperated, “We wouldn’t have _been_ ‘mates,’ or anything else, if I’d told them.”  
  
Ron stops moving. “What?”  
  
Malfoy rolls his eyes. “When we started all this, you remember how it was?” He pulls his hand away, waiting for some indication that Ron does before continuing. “Slytherin _meant_ Death Eater. You didn’t need the Mark, just the House was enough to get you an ‘interview’ with the Wizengamot. We were pariahs,” he shrugs, “and the same way all Slytherins were guilty, all other Houses were the enemy.”  
  
Ron wants to refute it, but he can’t. The House lines have only bled away in the past two years or so, and only _because_ of the many relationships like Ron and Malfoy’s that have come about as their worlds collectively got bigger than school. There were scores of people Ron had met since with whom he’d never swapped House affiliations because it no longer seemed to matter.  
  
“I had too many of my own doubts to drown out theirs too,” Malfoy says, fumbling around for the pack of smokes in his jeans’ pocket rather than meeting Ron’s eye. He lights the fag with his fingers and takes a long, deep drag. The relaxed pose he’s struck actually starts to look it as his entire body sinks into it, shoulders pressing into Ron’s nightstand. “Once I stopped expecting the worst from you, it’d been going on far too long to find a way to say it.”  
  
Ron shoves his trousers back down, relieved to hear Malfoy’s done the same as him: ditched his armour somewhere along the way. “I had doubts, too,” he offers.  
  
Malfoy’s laugh lets out a plume of smoke; he drags more back in. “You would’ve been an idiot not to.”  
  
“Sorry, I—” Ron starts.  
  
Malfoy shrugs, cutting him off with a long release of smoke.  
  
Ron leans in, drags his mouth along Malfoy’s jaw. He smells like smoke and tastes like Ron’s come, and Ron wants him. “Vienna sounds nice.”

* * *

Ron’s thumb catches on the handle of his teacup as he fiddles with its placement on the saucer and the ceramic clatters together, a too loud noise in the complete silence.  
  
Ron clears his throat, Malfoy smokes, and the clock in the courtyard chimes twice.  
  
The tension between Ron’s shoulder blades winds tighter and tighter with no relief in sight. Malfoy casually sips tea at his side, legs crossed and foot idly bobbing, the laces of his dark brogue jumping with the movement. He slides his spoon against the edge of his cup, before giving the rim a loud tap.  
  
He’s wearing a tweed overcoat that hits at his knees today. The jumper underneath is a v-neck and is as soft as it looks. The layers emphasise how wide his shoulders are without giving away how trim he is. His trousers are a barely noticeable, neutral plaid. They’re aces on his bum too.  
  
It’s Muggle, but swank.  
  
He’s rebellious around his mates, but not _that_ rebellious.  
  
Ron concentrates on the cold patch of sunlight under Malfoy’s chin. Shadows of branches are drifting through it, creating the illusion of his pulse fluttering wildly. Ron wants to slide his hand over it, feel the warm blood under it, stretch down Malfoy’s collar and tongue at the scars on his chest. It should be disturbing, how quickly he’s gone from thinking of Malfoy as an annoying mate without many mate-like qualities to a bloke he wants to fuck. Regularly. Often. Now.  
  
A loud, wet clink interrupts his thoughts, and his head jerks around, watching Pansy pick up the spoon she’d dropped into her cup. She sticks it in her mouth, purple painted lips puckering around it, sucks, and draws it out. She shifts forward on the table, baring her impressive cleavage.  
  
It should make Ron go a bit dim. Breasts always have done, but aside from noting how calculating the move was, he doesn’t have much of a reaction.  
  
Apparently he’s an arse man now.  
  
Malfoy’s thin, silver-framed sunglasses glint as he turns his head to meet her movement, shifting his lips to release a trail of smoke in Ron’s general direction. Because he’s a pillock.  
  
Pansy’s eyes dart between them, gaze sharply attuned to every twitch either of them might make. She knocks the convex side of her spoon into the rim of her mug ringingly and says, blunt and demanding, “Huge cock then?”  
  
Ron chokes on nothing, but all eyes fall on Malfoy, who finishes a sip of tea, making a production of the swallow, and says without the slightest hint of hesitation, almost as though he’s been dying to tell someone, anyone, _everyone_ , “Surprised he could ever get it in those Quidditch leathers, truly.”  
  
Ron should be drowning in embarrassment, and he is, but he’s also unconsciously preening. He quickly slouches to hide the fact that Malfoy’s admiration has got him half-hard.  
  
Zabini favours Ron with a cool assessment, his dark eyes feeling like ice as they move over Ron’s skin. His style is somewhat akin to Malfoy’s—the only other Slytherin at the table without any wizarding fashion obvious in his attire. He’s in a dark duffle coat over a waffle grey long-sleeve and dark trousers, a large statement watch on his wrist that doesn’t appear to have any magic to it. He’s a casual sprawl in the seat next to Malfoy, his elbow occasionally brushing Malfoy’s bicep, and his legs certainly spread wide enough that Malfoy’s brogues and Zabini’s simple derby blacks are likely pressed together underneath the table.  
  
Malfoy taps his nearly empty teacup, exhales smoke, and Zabini watches him, follows Malfoy’s finger up to his sunglassed gaze and asks curtly, “Any idea what to do with it?”  
  
Ron feels his expression flatten, lips crumbling together in a grim line.  
  
Malfoy frowns, as though the answer isn’t as straightforward as he’d like. Eventually he decides on, “He takes direction well.”  
  
Cut off at the knees that quickly, of course. Ron wants to sink into his seat and pout, but the illusion of the flutter is still there in Malfoy’s throat, and when Malfoy leans back into the metalwork of these rigid and uncomfortable café chairs, the breadth of his shoulders spreads, and the v at his neck dips down a little farther, so while Ron’s insulted, he’s not un-aroused.  
  
“Serious?” That’s Millicent, and it’s almost like she’s holding her breath for a confirmation, her thick face screwed up with a dreamy, romantic expression.  
  
Malfoy finally, for a half second at least, glances at Ron. Or seems to. He shrugs, stubs his fag out on his saucer. “The sex holds up, I don’t see why not.”  
  
It’s pathetic the way warmth blooms in Ron’s gut even as he internally panics. In that moment, he’d known what answer he wanted, but also, _how can he want that answer_? He half suspects it’s like those idiot things he doesn’t mean, but that relentlessly cram into his mouth while they’re shagging. Because, serious? With _Malfoy_? He’s giddy and repulsed by the same thought. He shakes it off to dissect—or maybe just prod indelicately at—later.  
  
Pansy gives a condescending shake of her head, as though asking the table to pray for her dear, sick-in-the-head friend. Scrunched curls brush her jaw line, and she ‘tsks’ as though Malfoy’s missing the wider picture. “It’s freckled, you know?” she says it slowly, to be sure Malfoy understands the implications here. She flicks a finger at Ron like she’s disposing of something foul, like a used tissue. “Ginger? Hard to accessorise with.”  
  
Ron nearly points out that he is a ‘he’ and not an ‘it,’ but as they mostly seem to have forgotten he can understand them when they speak, he decides to let it go. Reminding them might only encourage one on one interaction, and that is not something Ron wants.  
  
And it’s only slightly because he’s terrified of them.  
  
Malfoy shrugs again, unruffled. He drains his tea and hands his cup off to Daphy, who grabs for it gleefully. He says in a lazy drawl, as though the conversation’s already over with and he’s only playing along now, “Can’t argue that, and wouldn’t dare try.”  
  
Daphne turns Malfoy’s cup anti-clockwise with her left hand, frowns, and sets it aside carefully.  
  
Malfoy perks both eyebrows at her, just barely managing to raise them up over the tops of his sunglasses, impatient.  
  
“Well, it’s nothing good, Draco,” she says with a sniff, sitting back. She squints at him, against the sun, her own sunglasses doing her no good on top of her head. “You can’t tell me you were expecting anything else.”  
  
Malfoy shrugs, offers drolly, “There aren’t any hippogriffs involved though, are there?” Daphne rolls her eyes, and Malfoy brushes a thumb over her chipmunk cheek warmly. “Always could be worse then, Daphy, my dearest.”  
  
Zabini fishes in the pocket of his duffle coat, knocking Malfoy’s arm, and Malfoy proffers his hand agreeably, as though responding to some secret signal. He leaves it perched there until Zabini lifts free a pack of cigarettes, taps one out, and slides it between Malfoy’s fingers.  
  
Malfoy snaps the fingers of his free hand to ignite the tip, a parlour trick he’s been trotting out far too often.  
  
Ron watches them keenly, idly wishing he’d noted the brand of Malfoy’s smokes before this. Then he might know if this is an opportunistic fag or a regular occurrence. And if it’s the latter, well, then Ron might wonder how often Malfoy and Zabini are getting together. And in what capacity. Then he’d remind himself that he _does not care_ about either of those things, of course.  
  
Pansy leans across the table and the illusion of her makeup shatters a bit; he can see the faded purples under her lower eyelashes and the haggardness of her features. She demands coldly, “What’s in it for you?”  
  
It’s the first time anyone’s addressed Ron directly, and he could’ve done without it.  
  
At least it’s something he knows the answer to, though. “Malfoy’s arse.”  
  
“Temporary, then?” Zabini asks, lips curving into a taunting smirk.  
  
“Is it going somewhere?” Ron retorts.  
  
Goyle snags Ron’s gaze for the first time since he sat down, and holds his stare menacingly as his pudgy fingers reach across the table, gobble up three-quarters of Ron’s cold chips, and drop them onto his own recently-hoovered plate.  
  
“Oi!” Ron can’t help but exclaim. Not because he wants recompense—he hasn’t eaten a single bite anyway—as much as he wants to draw attention to how blatant that was.  
  
The only person—aside from Goyle (who is unblinkingly eating Ron’s chips one after the other)—who engages on what just happened is Millicent. She slaps both heavy palms down on either side of herself and half rises from her seat. “Wrestle you for it?”  
  
Malfoy waves his fag at her, smoke trailing, indicating her torso. “Bully,” he says with an exaggerated frown, “your nice dress.”

* * *

“Mmhm, in the last month or so, right?” is what Hermione says when Ron tells her. She’s leaning over a terrarium with her wand and a mason jar at the ready, curls hanging down into it from over her shoulders and eyes squinched.  
  
Ron had asked what she was doing when he first walked in, and she’d given an explanation that had handily explained nothing at all.  
  
It feels rude to ask again, at least so soon after the first time.  
  
“I tried to tell Harry,” she adds with a thoughtful frown that has more to do with whatever she’s doing than whatever she’s saying, “but he wouldn’t even entertain the idea.”  
  
Ron can’t help the smile that bends his lips as he watches her, a cloth headband doing its best to hold back her wild hair, fondly taunting, “Know-it-all.”  
  
“And proud of it,” Hermione fires back, grinning. A stack of papers teeters on the edge of the table they’re talking over and Winky rushes forward to catch them with her impressive head before they can topple. She piles them back up with careful hands, yanking her knitted cap back down over her ears. Hermione offers her a lovely, warm smile and turns back to Ron, now prodding something in the sandy bottom, her wand’s tip emitting pink sparks. “So, how serious is this?” she asks, huffing the few strands of hair that have broken free out of her face since both hands are occupied.  
  
Winky is back to pulling folders out of a filing cabinet, scanning the first few pages of each, then throwing them over her shoulder into a cardboard box.  
  
This is another reason Ron hadn’t engaged Hermione on this before. This whole ‘shagging Malfoy’ bit seems a tad… frivolous compared to whatever it is Hermione’s working on. Which is always something new, potentially life-altering, and imminently necessary. Legal briefs litter a davenport in the corner, and Crookshanks is balanced atop something that’s coughing bubbles incessantly, and a cauldron is burbling in the corner, and something in the terrarium has just started hissing.  
  
Hermione is busy, and important to just about every profession and every witch or wizard out there, and Ron’s shagging a prick with a prick. If perspective is what he’d been after, he would’ve come to her first.  
  
“Hell if I know,” he mutters, flicking a silver instrument that starts whining, building up like a siren. Hermione scowls at him and casts a quick freezing charm on it, the sound cutting off abruptly. The split second distraction from the terrarium makes something scuttle across the sand and sink under the decorative stone. She prods it with her wand, a vibration starting to shake the rock until the nearly invisible, scuttling worm-fish thing resurfaces, and Hermione closes the mason jar over top of it with a winded, brilliant grin.  
  
The expression fades the moment she looks up at him, eyes narrowing. Ron swallows. Maybe this is another reason he’s put off Hermione to the last—she won’t let him get away with not thinking about it, which has been his primary way of stumbling through this.  
  
The… wait, crocodile-bird(?) thing is filling the mason jar with something that looks like miniature lightning. Hermione is watching without the slightest bit of concern, taking a few notes on the parchment next to her elbow, so Ron’s hoping that’s what’s supposed to happen. She taps her quill on the page twice and says, forehead furrowing, “It would be okay if it were, you know? Serious, that is.”  
  
“Would it?” Ron asks in a tight, high voice. He honestly doesn’t think it would be. He’s not even sure he could square that with himself, let alone ask anyone else to.  
  
Hermione shrugs, frowning at the mason jar as the lightning turns a sickly pale mauve colour. She looks up at Ron, dark eyes glittering. “We’ve gone along with you this far, and none of it made any sense then. It doesn’t make any more sense now, but you’ve always been rather, well, _intense_ about him.”  
  
“Well, by that logic, so has Harry,” Ron points out, almost—without thought—batting at the whining silver thing again. He shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his joggers, just to be safe.  
  
Hermione grabs the thing and places it in her desk drawer with an indulgent shake of her head. It takes a minute for Ron to realise that Hermione’s not planning on responding, that perhaps she’s even tactfully keeping mum, and his skin briefly contracts on his body.  
  
Oh bloody hell, this is not a place he needs to put himself again. Harry loves Gin; he wasn’t after Hermione then, and he’s not after Malfoy now, and even if he were… Well, Ron and Malfoy are just having a bit of fun, because Malfoy is hardly the kind of bloke to get serious about.  
  
There, that’s the answer then.  
  
“Not serious,” Ron decides, feeling mostly sure of it, though he has to admit: “but not short-lived either.”  
  
The lightning fizzles all at once and forms a huge cloud of vivid purple smoke. Hermione lets out a long, gratified breath as she scoops up the mason jar, damming the smoke with a lid so quickly Ron almost doesn’t catch the movement. She uses her forearm to push the loose strands of hair up her forehead. “Can’t say it’s totally inexplicable,” she offers.  
  
Ron perks an eyebrow at her.  
  
“He is _excruciatingly_ pretty,” she says, light-hearted and smiling widely. “You’ve pulled well for your first boy.”  
  
Ron drops his elbows on Hermione’s desk, lowers his head until he can catch her eye, and says, “Just following the trend, then. I pulled exceptionally well for my first girl too, y’know?” Hermione blushes scarlet, looking pleased, and Ron pauses what he hopes is a tactful moment, then wags a finger over the table. “Now, what was all this about again?”  
  
Hermione scowls and whacks him in the arm.

* * *

Ron’s eyes smart, and he blinks, somehow still expecting that to clear the haze in the dark, smoke-laden parlour.  
  
The aroma of sage and rosemary is thick, the heat cloying, and together it’s bringing back repressed memories of an attic classroom, insect-like glasses, and foggy crystal balls. Ron’s already shed his coat, but his underarms are still a swamp. He’s not wearing anything under his jumper since he and Malfoy were both naked and late when he’d been snagging up clothes.  
  
Malfoy’s outfit doesn’t show any of the same strain. His moss green scarf is unknotted, hanging down on either side of his grey coat, his crisp undershirt is artfully unbuttoned three buttons down, his matching trousers are unwrinkled, and his smart-looking oxfords that he’s wearing without socks are perfectly laced. He’s got on clear glasses with tortoise shell frames for no other reason than they complement his face nicely, and his hair is exceptionally curly, as they’d been in the snow and then the shower barely an hour before. He’s nearly finished his fag, a casual and elegant, cross-legged pose in the seat nearest Ron.  
  
Ron rolls up his sleeves, again. “ _She’s_ asked to meet you, yeah?” His eyes dart to the clock above Daphne’s mantel, also again. “And she’s twenty-five minutes late?”  
  
Malfoy glances over, almost as though he forgot Ron were there. He leans forward, elbow on the side table between them. “I knew there was something I meant to tell you.” Ron eyes him warily, tugging down his sleeves again, but Malfoy just smokes decadently and uses his first three fingers to untangle the tuft of curly hair at the top of his forehead. “Daphy’s relationship to time is… nebulous at best.” He ashes his cigarette on a coaster, belatedly Transfiguring it into an ashtray. “Once we were in the middle of a conversation,” he takes a drag, “she asked me to excuse her a moment,” exhales it, “and she swanned into my flat three weeks later starting her sentence exactly as she’d left it.”  
  
Ron stares hard at him. “Then we hardly had to rush about it, did we?” He could’ve brought Malfoy to orgasm leisurely, the way the morning had practically demanded—snowy and grey and cold and encouraging hours spent in a warm bed, rather than plunging him headlong into it.  
  
Malfoy shrugs, not exactly disputing it. “She also shows up four hours early and wonders why you aren’t ready for the reservation that isn’t for another six.” He waves his fag in Ron’s face. “You can entertain yourself, can’t you?”  
  
Ron huffs, slumping down, shoving his trainer into the ugly coffee table in front of him. It’s such a solid red that it nearly qualifies as an eyesore.  
  
Malfoy sighs, rolling his eyes as though his histrionics wouldn’t be far more epic were the situation reversed. He crushes his fag, pulls out another, takes a moment before igniting it to alight his eyes on Ron and ask, “When’s the last time you fucked a woman?”  
  
Well, that’s come from bloody nowhere.  
  
Ron fidgets, slides his sleeves up again in the stifling heat, wondering if this is somehow a trap. He’s especially not sure why Malfoy’s asking, if only because Malfoy already knows the answer. “Susan, whenever that was. Five, six months ago?”  
  
Malfoy nods as though he expected nothing less, lights his fag, bobs his foot, and smirks. “Do you miss tits?”  
  
Ron doesn’t have to think about it, but he figures he should, just to be sure. His first instinct was right, though. “Would’ve thought I would, honest, but no.” He nods to Malfoy, sitting up and leaning in. “‘Sides, you’ve got a nice enough set over there.” True, his nipples aren’t as sensitive as Ron would like—he’s got nipple _moves_ after ‘Mione—but he gets exactly the kind of _rise_ he wants out of him when he uses his teeth.  
  
Malfoy drops his chin into his propped palm, elbow on the arm of his seat, and says, “I never much saw the appeal. Pansy’s are nice enough, I suppose, but hardly arousing.”  
  
Ron lets that image settle with a rough swallow. He shuffles his shoe closer to Malfoy’s, knocks against his oxford until he uncrosses his legs. He drops a hand onto the arm of the couch Malfoy’s on, slides it down the upholstery to his trousers, gripping his thick thigh, thumb slipping to the inside of it, caressing slowly. “You’ve played with Parkinson’s tits?” Ron has no idea why this is doing it for him, but it very much is, and he’s getting harder by the second. “Well, don’t leave me in suspense, how did that happen?”  
  
“Bored, horny teenagers, how else?” Malfoy’s gaze drops to Ron’s crotch, his dick big enough that his arousal is impossible to hide. Malfoy’s smirk goes all devilment and pleasure. “They were heavier than I expected, warm and weighty, and when I flicked her nipple she got so wet I could see it through her knickers.”  
  
Ron abandons his attempts at seduction, grabs Malfoy’s hand and shoves it onto his throbbing erection. Already his bollocks feel heavy and impatient. “Did you shag her?” His breath hitches stupidly when Malfoy unzips his trousers.  
  
“Mm-hmm,” Malfoy hums softly, moving closer, stubbing out his half-smoked fag, so Ron can feel Malfoy’s arousal against his knee. “She was so wet and responsive,” he says breathily, and Ron grabs him closer, tugs at his trousers and pants, pulling them down, and Malfoy is in his lap in this armchair that matches nothing else in Daphne’s parlour, and his hand is down Ron’s pants and his mouth is on Ron’s ear.  
  
Ron yanks his head around by his chin and asks into his mouth, “Did she come?” He shoves biting and forceful kisses on Malfoy because he can’t help himself, Malfoy’s cock dripping against Ron’s jumper, Malfoy’s added body heat making him sweat so badly he’s nearly shaking. Ron tears at his bottoms, hears rips and groans of fabric that he can fuck about with later, because right now he needs to fuck about with Malfoy.  
  
Malfoy grins into the press of Ron’s lips, and he says the charm for lubrication barely a second before he sinks down onto Ron’s cock. Ron’s lung capacity goes down to zero, all his breaths—past and future—sucked away. “Twice,” he half-whispers against Ron’s neck. “Once from my cock and once from my mouth. She tasted like honey and lemon, and she came so hard my entire face was slick from it,” and that’s as much as Ron can handle.  
  
“Shit, shit, _fuck_ ,” Ron gasps out as he comes hard in Malfoy’s arse, shaking from the heat and an orgasm that’s just drained every ounce of strength from every individual muscle.  
  
“Weasley.” It’s not a pacified, relaxed exhalation. Instead, Malfoy’s tone is low and dangerous, and Ron wants to shrivel in on himself. Malfoy’s voice is an unsteady growl. “You did not just come in my arse.”  
  
Fuck, fuck, bugger, fuck. “Course not,” he mumbles stupidly, “you’ve told me not to.” Malfoy has, multiple times, and Ron’s always listened. And while there have been a few close calls, he’s never been caught so off-guard by his own finish before.  
  
He’s still got his arms around Malfoy’s waist and is half hiding his burning face against his scarf when Malfoy snarls, shoving at Ron’s arms, “Get off.” He’s still hard but his prick looks more angry than eager. He reaches for his wand, says a biting, “ _Scourigify_ ,” and detangles himself from Ron, who only realises he’s got the end of Malfoy’s scarf in his hand when he snarks, “Off, fucking prick.” Malfoy stands, and Ron doesn’t even get to watch his semen slide down Malfoy’s leg—so quick with the spell, he was—which he only realises he badly wanted to see when he doesn’t get to. “We should not have done this _now_.”  
  
“Like you really tried to stop me,” Ron grumbles while Malfoy settles his trousers on his hips, making the buttoning and zipping look as appealing as the opposite had.  
  
Malfoy glares at him but it’s not heartfelt. “Go… somewhere else. Your face is annoying me.”  
  
Ron rolls his eyes and casts about for his trousers which are, as suspected, ripped, but a few hasty charms leave them almost good as new. He hops into them, grabs Malfoy’s face around, and kisses him. “Love when you whisper sweet nothings to me, darling,” he says in a saccharine voice. “Keeps the magic alive.”  
  
Malfoy swats him off with a scowl, and Ron grabs him round the waist, sliding his hand up Malfoy’s inner thigh, outlining his still-hard cock. “Did you really shag Parkinson?” he asks, nipping at Malfoy’s lower lip.  
  
Malfoy nods, breath hitching even as he pretends it didn’t, shrugging his boxy shoulders. “I like certainty, even in sexuality.” Ron strokes Malfoy’s tongue with his own, long, slow slides.  
  
He pulls back. “And?”  
  
Malfoy’s voice has gotten even breathier as Ron slides a thigh between his legs, getting Malfoy’s prick up against him. “I wouldn’t have been able to stay hard long enough to shag her if Blaise hadn’t gotten into bed with us.”  
  
Ron stiffens. “What?”  
  
Malfoy blinks prettily as Ron’s hands lose contact with his hips and arse, no longer pulling him into his thigh. “What?” he says back, as though he’s trying to reconstruct the conversation only to find his brain wasn’t taking any of it down.  
  
There’s a welcome clatter in the front hall, and Ron breaks away from Malfoy entirely, no longer in the mood for where this had been going. “Think Daphne’s here,” he says gruffly.  
  
Malfoy sighs, shuffling his clothing, then his erection. He looks up at Ron, not noticing anything out of order, or else not commenting on it, and smirks. He tips his head toward the hall. “Would you shag her?”  
  
Ron stumbles mentally, the question not what he was expecting. Daphne’s nice enough looking, he supposes. Though her eyes never seem to focus in on the present moment, and her voice has an omnipresent lackadaisical lilt that implies she’s bored or tired or both, and she’s always wearing those long, fake fingernails that Ron can’t stand. “Sure,” Ron offers, though the answer is no. “Why are we here again?” he asks, mostly to change the subject, pulling at his collar. He’s even more uncomfortable with the room’s stuffiness now that he’s had nearly fully clothed sex in it.  
  
“Daphy wants to do a reading for us. She’s testing out a new tarot deck she got somewhere in Greece.” Malfoy pushes his hair up out of his face, his cheeks still the slightest bit pink. He tucks his shirt flatter into his trousers, straightens the waist. “She got an ‘O’ in Divination, you know?”  
  
Ron glowers at him. “You mean to torture me, don’t you?”  
  
Malfoy smirks, leans in, tugs at the hem of Ron’s jumper in a teasing gesture. “Obviously.”

* * *

Harry brings in cold air and a buoyant energy, an animated blur in Ron’s periphery. “All right?” he asks after him happily, shoving Ron’s shoulder as he settles in at his side. He adds brilliantly, “I’d ask how goes it with shagging my only remaining mortal enemy, but then you’d answer.” He laughs brightly at his own joke, sloshes down a pint Ron had got for him over a half hour earlier, back when Ron had still been able to function. He sees Harry half stand with an overlarge wave to the door from the corner of his eye, which likely means Hermione’s bustling her way over as well.  
  
Ron doesn’t turn, can’t. A small forest of empty pints crowds around him, and he gestures with his newest, nearly-empty one out towards the street. “You know ‘im?” His voice is unfamiliar to his own ears, clipped and strangled.  
  
Harry follows the direction of the glass, wary now. Ron had picked the table for its view, which had been quite different when he’d first sat down. The light snow drifting down to powder the cobbles of the street and the roughhewn stone of the dividing wall between the road and the river. The iron lampposts offering a soft, pale yellow glow, and the bridge off in the distance, just visible in the far corner of the window.  
  
Harry’s eyes widen and his gaze darts uneasily from the view to Ron’s pinched expression.  
  
Malfoy’s heavy wool coat and tortoise shell glasses and snow-pale curls are all visible in profile. His breath steaming, his elbows resting on the edge of the bridge, and Ron imagines that his nose is likely pink, his fingers chapped.  
  
He’s forgotten his gloves and Ron knows that because his bare, pale fingers are the first thing the bloke at his side had reached for when he arrived a half hour ago. Malfoy’s delicate hand held between two overly large ones.  
  
The bloke’s standing just at the edge of the lamppost’s reach and Ron only has a vague impression of a man slightly taller than Malfoy, with a much wider frame, the breadth of his chest nearly obscene.  
  
His gigantic shadow keeps eclipsing Malfoy’s face as he falls in and out of his orbit, reaching out a hand to brush against Malfoy’s jaw or shoulder.  
  
Harry clears his throat, obviously hoping to draw Ron’s attention. “I don’t,” he answers after he realises he’s not getting it. He shares a look with someone outside of Ron’s periphery, meaning Hermione’s joined them.  
  
He thinks she might let out a quick little exhalation of breath.  
  
Ron’s hand tightens into a fist on the tabletop. His skin feels shiny and stretched from how often it’s done so in the last half hour. The pub is aglow in shades of dark orange and red and his knuckles almost look bloody from it. He can barely get the words out, there’s so much grit in them, “Look cosy, don’t they?”  
  
Harry settles down again, having been half raised up for an awkwardly long moment. He says carefully, “Didn’t think that would bother you.”  
  
Ron lets out an unsettling bark of laughter. “Who’s bothered?”  
  
Harry takes a swig of his ale, says nothing, while Hermione huffs. Loudly. “You are,” she says impatiently. She grabs Ron’s chin, yanks it around and points toward the door. “Now go out there and tell him so.” Everything about her says ‘this is not a problem.’ A problem is facilitating an entire species unlearning inflicted servitude by an evil ruling class, not putting your feelings into words.  
  
Ron shakes his head without meaning to. “What if—”  
  
“I will run probability scenarios with you all night if you like,” she says grimly, and it sounds like a threat. Because it is a threat. “Or you can be an adult, having an adult relationship, and discuss what’s bothering you.”  
  
She’s right, because of course she’s right.  
  
She’s Hermione.  
  
And maybe Ron and Malfoy’s relationship isn’t the most adult one, but it has always been honest despite being precarious. He tries to save some face, says gruffly, “Only because you’ve threatened me with probability scenarios, understand?” He stops, half gone, and turns back. The guilt is sudden and _heavy_ , and Ron feels like he’s betrayed something when he looks at Harry. Running after a bloke is decidedly not _just shagging_.  
  
Harry offers him an uneasy smile and shrugs. “None of this looks planned, mate. I don’t think I understand it any more than you do.”  
  
Ron smiles more with the left side of his face and says, relieved and deadly serious, “I love you, mate.”  
  
Harry heartens a bit and waves him off. “Yeah, yeah, go get your ferret already.”  
  
Ron pulls on his tan, cotton-padded coat at the door, dropping one of ‘Mione’s thick scarves over his neck and doing up every other button, bracing himself against the cold as he shoves open the door. He presses back the hood, which is twisted up behind his neck, shakes the choppy orange hair out of his face and finds Malfoy, alone, waiting at the end of the bridge nearest him, watching.  
  
Well.  
  
All right then. Maybe not quite the scene he’d prepared for.  
  
Ron yanks the gloves out of his pockets, stalks up to Malfoy, grabs his hands one by one and shoves them on. They’re not Malfoy’s style, not even half as elegant as Malfoy’s slate grey ones are, and if he takes them off, Ron’ll hex him.  
  
He doesn’t try. He stands there, expression inscrutable, and Ron shoves his hands in the pockets of his coat. “Well.”  
  
“Well?” Malfoy echoes, impatient.  
  
Ron huffs, annoyed. With Malfoy, with himself, with that fucking Andros the Invincible of a bloke. “Who in Godric’s name was that then?”  
  
Malfoy carefully brushes a flake of snow off the lens of his glasses with a gloved finger. His eyes flick over the top of Ron’s hair, where flakes are probably falling and melting and falling and melting. A pause, then: “A former fuck,” he offers with an easy shrug.  
  
Ron pulls out his hands, swings them, crosses his arms over his chest to stop himself from swinging them, clenches and flexes his jaw. “How former?”  
  
A slow smirk pulls up the left side of Malfoy’s mouth. “Do you care?” he asks lazily, but his eyes don’t mirror the tone.  
  
Ron huffs, his breath a white cloud in the cold, and he scrubs at his hair. Cold snow melting against warm fingers. He’s exhausted suddenly, every muscle in his body feeling like it’s been pushed to its limit. Weakly, he moans, “Bloody hell, I think I do.” Malfoy’s eyes widen behind his frames, and his mouth hangs half-open. “I don’t just want to fuck you, I want to be the _only one_ who fucks you.” He snorts to himself. “Merlin’s soggy knickers.”  
  
Ron’s not sure which one of them is more surprised. Malfoy’s sarcasm is shaky but hallmark when he finally manages, “You want to hold my hand and take a walk next to the Thames, too?”  
  
Ron doesn’t bite, simply asks, unbothered, “Would I get sex out of it?” Before Malfoy can answer, Ron tugs at the hem of his white jumper, pulls it out and slides his hand under it, pressing against warm skin. One, then the other, finding Malfoy’s hips and tugging him closer. “There’s never a time when I don’t want to shag you, yeah? Any hour, any day, anywhere.” They’ve certainly proved that enough. “You can’t fuck other people when I’m never not on offer, all right?”  
  
Malfoy’s lips purse, then slacken, and his hands come up to cup Ron’s elbows, tugging without seeming to realise it. “Fine.”  
  
Ron leans back, dipping his head to catch Malfoy’s downturned gaze so he can say sincerely, “I won’t either.”  
  
Malfoy scoffs with a dismissive, “I care.” The roll of his eyes seems slightly forced, and as soon as they’ve made the circuit, he flinches like he regrets adding it.  
  
“Yeah, you do,” Ron says. He sighs, blowing out the breath. “S’the fucking worst, eh?”  
  
Malfoy frowns, drops his forehead onto Ron’s shoulder, and mumbles into it, “I’m not enjoying it.”  
  
Ron’s hands brush down the v of Malfoy’s pelvis, hook his index fingers in the waistband of his pants. He grins, pulling. “Think I might be able to do something about that.”

* * *

Ron’s not sure how long Malfoy’s been standing, pacing, at the foot of his bed when he comes to, but he’s wearing the jumper Ron left at his place two nights ago, black slim-fitting jeans, and the tortoise shell frames. They’re larger lenses than usual, and the frames don’t hide the grey-tinged skin beneath his eyes as well as the others had.  
  
“Wasn’t expecting you,” Ron says with a yawn, tossing off his faded blue comforter, idly noting the mess of his floor, which has been acting as a very poor laundry basket over the past few weeks. The cold brushes against his bare skin. He’s been sleeping nude, with warming charms, for exactly this reason and he’s not sure if he’s hard from the Malfoy in his bedroom or the morning in his window. He blinks sleepily, crinkly-eyed and grinning. “S’a nice surprise.”  
  
Malfoy’s head cocks towards him with a dangerous sharpness, looking like an affronted bird. His hair is a mess of flyaways and tangles, and his cap toe boots are laced haphazardly, and he’s in Ron’s jumper, and Ron realises this is Malfoy in disarray. Whatever reason he’s come, he’s done so in a hurry, enough of one to sacrifice being perfectly, eerily put together. He winces, croaks, “It truly isn’t.”  
  
Ron gestures to his unflagging cock, frowning curiously. “I’ll have to disagree with you there.”  
  
Malfoy scowls, runs a hand through his hair. Only it snags on the tangles, and he yanks it free unceremoniously. “I’m not here to fuck.”  
  
“Oh. Well.” Ron casts about uneasily, this territory utterly uncharted. Malfoy _always_ wants to shag, what the hell? He’s not… bored, is he? Ron smiles what he hopes is a winning smile. “Could you be?” He lifts his hips. “It’s Pavlovian, ya see?”  
  
Malfoy shoots him a withering glare (that does no withering) and spits, “I’m pregnant.”  
  
Ron would like to process that, really he would, but he’s only just woken up, the object of what feels like his every sexual desire is pacing his bedroom in Ron’s own well-worn clothing, and he’s so hard from the image there’s no blood in his brain. The best he can manage for the moment is: “Damn.”  
  
Malfoy pulls at his own biceps, pacing again. “Yes,” he says shortly, adding, “Well,” as though it’s punctuation.  
  
Ron sits up, watching Malfoy pace, fingers in his tangled hair, a golden ‘R’ emblazoned on his chest like a bloody brand, his eyes soft with a lack of sleep, and Ron blurts out, “Can I not fuck you while you are?” He cringes at his own insensitivity and while, really, he is trying to get his brain to think other thoughts, _important thoughts_ , holy fucking Merlin, does he want Malfoy under him or on top of him or inside him. Right. Bloody. Now.  
  
“ _What_?” Malfoy snarls, nostrils flaring, eyes blazing.  
  
“You shut me down rather quick,” Ron says meekly, drawing it out slowly, not wanting to provoke Malfoy’s anger, but very much wanting to take advantage of this dishevelled, soft, oddly open version of him, “so I’m assuming we _can’t_ if—”  
  
Malfoy’s apoplectic at best, and the darkness under his eyes becomes more pronounced when he narrows them. “Weasley, did you not just hear me?”  
  
Ron nods earnestly, twisting his fingers in the sheets before realising it and making himself stop. “Course I did.” Malfoy opens his mouth, but Ron swoops in before he can start. He scoots closer to the end of the bed, closer to Malfoy, his dick slapping his stomach as he goes. “The way I figure it, though, we’ve got, what, eight, seven, however many months to deal with that, yeah?” Ron looks down, looks back up. “My prick’s going to explode in the next thirty _minutes_ if you don’t get your arse over here.”  
  
Malfoy’s mouth closes, opens, closes again. Then he’s a flurry of movement, kicking off his boots, yanking off his trousers and Ron’s jumper, saying mostly to himself, “I withdraw my objection. I adore your logic.”  
  
Ron grabs his hand, pulling him over the cumbersome footboard made from light ash, grabbing him round the waist and rolling Malfoy under him. Only as Ron’s pulling away the tortoise shell frames does he realise they’ve never fucked face to face like this, in a bed before. He actually has his own lube in the bedside table, too.  
  
Malfoy moves his shoulder like he means to roll over after Ron’s got him slick, and Ron catches his arm, grabs his hand, and laces their fingers together, pressing them down by his head. Malfoy gasps when Ron breaches the tight ring of muscles and slides home, and Ron kisses his chest, his neck, his ear.  
  
They fuck like they’re not rushing to the end for once, slow and lazy and long, and not only because it’s half six and they’re both beyond exhausted.  
  
Malfoy lets Ron come inside him and doesn’t _Scourgify_ it away the moment it’s done. Instead, he relaxes into Ron’s mattress, looking bleary-eyed but calm. He asks soberly, “What are we going to do?”  
  
Ron props himself up on his elbow, feeling more able to think now, his fingers tracing the network of scars on Malfoy’s chest, watching them leave gooseflesh on the undamaged skin in their wake. He shrugs. “You’re going to get fat. I’m going to continue to get laid.” He frowns. “We should probably start smoking that stuff Luna grows in her backyard, keep us from panicking about what shitty dads we’ll make.”  
  
Malfoy eyes him carefully, his gaze searching. For once not tracking Ron’s freckles, but any possible hidden expression in his eyes. “You want to do this?”  
  
Ron shrugs again. “I accept we’re doing this.” He spreads his palm over Malfoy’s hard abdomen. It feels the same as always. He meets Malfoy’s shrewd gaze and adds, clarifying, “If you want to, that is, then yeah, I’m in.” It feels like he should be freaking out more, and maybe that’s coming and he just hasn’t met it yet, but for right now, all he knows is that he wants whatever Malfoy wants. Whatever’s going to make him feel less rattled, less undone, because Ron’s never wanted to be one of the people making him feel like he has no control. Not since all this started anyway. He says helplessly, “Merlin knows I’m bloody mad about you. I’ve no doubt I will be for our kid too.” He smirks when Malfoy meets his eye. “Albeit in a completely different way, understand?”  
  
Malfoy rolls his eyes, but he can’t quell the answering smirk on his lips.  
  
Ron brushes his thumb over the lower one. Sleep is starting to climb him again, and Malfoy looks hazy and bright in the splash of early morning sun. “But, ‘lo, I’m in for whatever you want to do, you’ve got me for all of it. If you don’t want to, I’m behind you in that too.”  
  
Malfoy watches him for a long moment, throws his leg over Ron’s hip, pushes him onto his back with the same movement. He stares down at Ron with blown pupils and a heaving chest. “Can you get it up again?”  
  
Tired as he is, well: “The answer’s always the same, Malfoy,” Ron says with a grin. He grabs an arse cheek and pulls Malfoy closer, grumbling, “Get your arse up already.”

* * *

It’s mid-morning by the time they make it down to Ron’s kitchen. Malfoy’s hair is a tangle of curls and he’s cosied up in Ron’s jumper, equally stolen winter socks, and no pants. He’s lazily perched up on Ron’s chipped, speckled counter, blinking heavily. He lifts his foot and shoves it into the pantry door across the way, the two sides of Ron’s kitchen so close together there’s barely enough room to turn around.  
  
The kettle’s steaming but not yet whining when Ron says blankly, the thought slamming into him along with the sharp and too bright slants of sunlight from the window over the sink, “We’ve got to tell our parents.”  
  
Malfoy pauses in brushing some crumbs away from his hip. He blinks twice. “Salazar.” Blink. “We have to tell our parents.”  
  
Ron nods, slowly. “Then our friends.” The kettle whistles and Ron pours them both a splash in mismatching cups, his bright yellow and matching his tea towels and Malfoy’s bright blue and matching his stove.  
  
“Or.” Malfoy takes his mug carefully, letting it warm his pale fingers. “Here’s a plan.” He waits until he has Ron’s full attention. “We move to Romania and never speak to any of those people again.”  
  
Ron’s hand slides up the inside of Malfoy’s thigh, fingers curling around his soft, perfect cock. “They’re a bit uptight about men shagging over there.”  
  
“Hell.” Malfoy pouts, though the expression quickly breaks apart with each hitching breath as Malfoy hardens from the strokes of Ron’s hand.  
  
Ron steps into the spread of Malfoy’s thighs, tugs at his hips, bringing Malfoy to the edge of the counter, up against his torso. “And I need to shag you, oftentimes in public as you well know. Can’t be expected to change the routine now.” Malfoy’s stupid thick thighs squeeze Ron’s sides, and Ron presses the sticky wet head of Malfoy’s prick into his stomach, under his thin t-shirt, sliding precome over his abdomen. He adds, offhand, “‘Sides, Charlie lives there anyway.”  
  
Malfoy’s brow furrows even as his hips press into Ron’s hands with more and more desperation. “That’s the one who came around in fourth year, right?” His hands clench on Ron’s shoulders. “Scarred, rugged, keeps dragons?”  
  
“That’s him,” Ron agrees.  
  
Malfoy licks his lips. “Mm, I could definitely make do with that.”  
  
Ron growls, mock-offended, lifts Malfoy’s jumper above his navel and lowers his head. He’s not anywhere near as skilled a cocksucker as Malfoy is. He gags more often than he likes, and he’s unable to go very deep at all, but it puts a reverent expression on Malfoy’s face every time he does it, and that’s beyond enough incentive.  
  
This time is no exception, and working the shaft with his hand and the head with his mouth gets Malfoy off in no time at all. His ankles cross over Ron’s back and squeeze tightly when he comes and Ron manages not to choke, mostly, and swallows after he’s wrestled with his gag reflex.  
  
His voice is the slightest bit hoarse when he presses a slick kiss to Malfoy’s lips and says, “Oi, you made your pick of brother. Not saying it was the wisest choice, but pretty sure you’re stuck with it now, mate.”  
  
Malfoy gives him a squinting once over, shrugs, sighs. “I suppose there were worse options.”  
  
Ron rolls his eyes, grabs Malfoy’s hips, and drags him up against his far-from-spent dick. “Please, Malfoy, you’re inflating my ego to dangerous degrees here.”

* * *

Much like most things about Malfoy, there’s no delicate way to say it.  
  
So Ron says it indelicately.  
  
“Malfoy’s up the duff.”  
  
Hermione looks up from the book resting atop her crossed legs. It’s at least half as big as she is, and Ron wouldn’t be surprised if she’d put a lightening charm on it to keep the blood flowing to her toes. The floral armchair she’s tucked into is ugly as sin but at least it’s no longer cursed, even if it’s not quite comfortable. Grimmauld Place actually gets light in through the front windows now that doesn’t illuminate just dust and dankness, Ron can see the hair frizz around Hermione’s face and the slow blink of her eyes.  
  
Harry’s features are slightly washed out by the sun coming in strong over his shoulders where he’s sitting on the couch, polish in one hand and broom in the other. Both his arm and his head had raised together though so now he’s polishing the air above his Firebolt.  
  
Ron drinks deeply from his bottle of Butterbeer, his legs splayed out under the coffee table, hand thrown behind him on the area rug to keep himself upright.  
  
He waits.  
  
When four minutes have passed, according to the grandfather clock in the hall, and there hasn’t been another sound, Ron puts the bottle down with a _clack_ and says, “Well, don’t all react at once.”  
  
Hermione’s the first to recover. Sort of. “That’s, uh—” She gently closes the book, wiggles her toes in her flats, glances at Harry. “Congratulations, Ron?”  
  
Harry swallows, nods like he doesn’t know he’s doing it, glances at Hermione, then back to Ron. “Cheers.”  
  
Ron isn’t one hundred percent sure, but he doesn’t think Harry or Hermione are bothered as much as stunned. Which is fair enough, he and Malfoy were _still_ stumbling over it and it had been two weeks.  
  
They’d only recently realised Malfoy would have to stop smoking, and that had been a helluva row. And a helluva shag.  
  
But.  
  
Ron grins stupidly down at himself. He’s found the thing. The thing that’s going to make him more than he was before, the thing he wants, the thing he loves—it’s a family of his own.  
  
And, really, _duh_.  
  
Hermione glances at Harry, back at Ron, offers, “I’m assuming this wasn’t planned?”  
  
Ron snorts. “Not as such.”  
  
She circles her hand in an encouraging motion. “Well, come on then, out with it.” Ron blinks at her, lost, and she blows out an exasperated breath, as though there could only ever be one question that matters now and he’s an idiot for not knowing it. “Are you happy?”  
  
Ron blinks. “What?”  
  
Harry’s let his broom and polish go entirely and instead of giving Hermione the odd look that Ron expected after her comment, he underlines it: “Mate, are you happy? Do you want a baby shower or a going away party? What do you need from us?”  
  
Ron blinks at them, and for a moment he’s almost furious on Malfoy’s behalf and then he realises and feels like a complete tit. He grins. “You’d only throw me a going away party ‘cause you know I’d be back within the day.”  
  
“Of course,” Hermione says primly while Harry nods stoutly.  
  
Harry scrubs at his scruffy jaw, throws the polishing rag at Ron’s head. Ron catches it before it can smack him in the face. “We wouldn’t still be friends with you if you were that kind of shiteheel.”  
  
Ron snorts, shaking his head. “You’ve been spending too much time with Seamus, mate.” Harry shrugs unapologetically, and Ron looks between them, that feeling of _good_ in his gut that’s been there for weeks spreading and building and joyfully squirming. Not only because, yeah, he _is_ bloody happy, but also because… that’s the only concern Harry or Hermione have for the whole of it.  
  
This is why he can’t resent them, even when they overshadow him just by existing: they love him too bloody much. He’s just told them he’s having a sprog with one of their least favourite people on the planet and their only concern is _his happiness_.  
  
“I’m—fuckin’ hell, don’t ever repeat this, but I’m beyond it. I mean, the whole bit, bloody _ecstatic_.”  
  
He knows he’s grinning like a full-on idiot but, it’s more than okay, because Harry and Hermione are too. Harry looks at them both and lets out a long whistle, saying with disbelief and straight giddiness, “We’re having a _baby_.”  
  
Hell. They are. They’re having a bloody baby.  
  
There’s a brief, communal fit of laughter and then Hermione settles a bit and asks, “You love him, then?”  
  
Ron shakes his head. “Hell, I don’t know.” And maybe he does know but the most honest thing he can say is: “He’s—he’s a difficult bloke, impossible, and distant standing right in front of ya, and I’ve never been more taken in by someone, so. There’s that.”  
  
Harry blinks behind his round glasses, scratches at his disastrous hair. “Sounds exhausting.”  
  
“It is,” Ron agrees, unable to deny it, grins, “but exhilarating too.” Malfoy’s a new beast, able to drain him or reinvigorate him at any given moment. He shakes his head, clapping his hands together, sniffing heartily. “All right, well, we’ve talked my shite.” He waves off Harry with a dismissive hand. “We’ve heard enough about this one for a lifetime, name in the paper every bloody week.”  
  
Harry snorts.  
  
Ron waves on Hermione, like he’s cleared the floor for her. “‘Mione, how’s operation ‘Dismantle the Power Structure from the Inside’ going?”

* * *

Ron stumbles out of the grate—the fireplace much smaller than he remembers—his ungainly exit making a framed picture of Bill wearing his Head Boy badge nearly topple off the mantel. He steadies it just as the flames leap up again and slows Malfoy’s momentum, catching his arms as he steps onto the rug.  
  
Ron looks around self-consciously as he notices Malfoy doing the same, trying to see it all with new eyes. The slanting, uneven angles that only magic could make work, the threadbare furniture and cluttered counter space, the endless framed pictures and the clock with nine hands that had one stuck permanently on ‘Lost.’  
  
Ron smooths a hand over Malfoy’s belly. It’s not quite a proper bump, but it’s still a pretty clear indication Malfoy’s preggers because it veers so strangely from his natural silhouette. His thick, cable sweater hides it well and his dark brick chino’s don’t even need to be let out yet. He’s got on no socks with his oxfords again and thin silver-framed glasses, his curly hair falling into his face.  
  
“Is that you, Ron?” his mum calls from what sounds, unsurprisingly, like the kitchen.  
  
Ron had told her enough to know to expect him, but not enough to know why or who with. He’s getting his first pangs of regret over that now. When Ron doesn’t immediately move, Malfoy sniffs greedily and goes without him. He doesn’t bother to greet Ron’s mum, who’s got more grey hairs than he remembers, looking a little more worn than he’s seen her, and goes straight to the table where a plate of biscuits is waiting.  
  
He pops two into his mouth at the same time, crumbs cascading down his front onto the floor. Ron glares at him and he lazily spells the mess away without even making eye contact.  
  
Pots and pans are scouring themselves over the sink, a recipe book-slash-memoir is flipping to the next page, and a cauldron is bubbling on the stove while his mum sorts potatoes.  
  
She turns to him with a wide smile, familiar yellow and white apron, familiar crinkles at the corners of her eyes, familiar warmth to her hug as she pulls him in. When they pull apart, Ron gestures to Malfoy, who has another biscuit in his mouth. “Mum, you remember Malfoy, eh?”  
  
She gives Ron an uneasy look, clearly looking for a hint as to what kind of visit this is and whether or not she should be hospitable, before turning to Malfoy. “Lovely to see you again, dear,” she lies.  
  
Malfoy nods, grabbing a handful of biscuits and looking around the kitchen. His eyes snag on the window above the sink where a few gnomes are digging in the garden, one of them chasing a bawking chicken, and Ron notices the dirt tracked across the laminate floor, the mismatched and wobbling legs of their kitchen table, the way some of the cabinet doors now hang at odd angles, how tired his mum looks.  
  
Malfoy’s smile is ambiguous and he plops himself down in a seat at the kitchen table, looking back at Ron. “It’s perfect.”  
  
Ron blinks, looks around again, and doesn’t see the dirt or the off-centreness or the unevenness—he sees _home_.  
  
His mum is watching him with an inscrutable expression and Ron takes a breath, scratches at his eyebrow with his ragged thumbnail, opens his mouth. “So, uh, here’s, well, the thing that, uh. Right, because—”  
  
Malfoy swallows down another half-chewed biscuit and says bluntly, “We’re shagging, I’m up the duff,” he gestures to the plate in the middle with only two biscuits left on it and asks, “Also, can I have another one of—one plus another tin of these biscuits?”  
  
Ron flinches and has no idea he’s closed his eyes until he has to peek one back open.  
  
His mum bustles over to the larder, closing the door to it as she pulls off the plastic from another identical plate of biscuits. She sets it down in front of Malfoy and takes the seat beside him, turning to look at him full in the face. She folds her hands on the table and says, “You know how to cook?”  
  
“Not in the least,” Malfoy says back happily, popping in another biscuit.  
  
And Ron wishes he would lie, just a little. He doesn’t expect his mum to love Malfoy like a second, er, eighth child, but he doesn’t want her to actively despise him either. If he would just make _some_ effort.  
  
His mum shifts and Ron thinks maybe she looks a bit thinner too, but not in a way that looks healthy, more like she’s been compressed. There’s no weakening of her constitution though. Her eyes are sharp and her love is tough. “You love my son?” she asks tartly.  
  
“Which?” Malfoy quips so quickly it almost makes Ron snort.  
  
His mum is not so inclined, her eyes fixed and steadfast.  
  
Malfoy doesn’t make her ask again, instead he eats a biscuit and shrugs. “I’ve grown somewhat fond of him.”  
  
Fan-friggin’-tastic. Ron sinks into a chair at the far end of the table, and doesn’t bang his head against it. But he thinks about it.  
  
His mum perks an eyebrow, tightening her fingers where they’re laced together. “Are you going to take care of him?”  
  
Malfoy snorts. Loudly. “He’s a full-grown man, he can take care of himself.”  
  
They definitely should’ve practised before coming here.  
  
“You accept him. What he does, how he lives, who he is?”  
  
Malfoy glances over at Ron, as though deciding. After a while, he offers, “As long as he’s not making me miserable on account of his own sourness, yes.”  
  
His mum’s clearly saved the most important question for last, and her tone is more serious as she asks it. “You intend to be a partner to him?”  
  
Malfoy doesn’t hesitate. He smiles a grim smile and jabs a pointed finger Ron’s way. “We’re struggling through all of this together, or I’ll _Crucio_ him.”  
  
Mrs. Weasley watches Malfoy for a long moment, gives a sharp nod of her head, reaches over and pats Ron’s hand with an approving, “He’ll do.”  
  
What the—He _will_?  
  
She passes the empty biscuit plate to Ron with a simple, “Do something with this, won’t you?” She bustles over to the cabinet above the stove and says to Malfoy, “I’ll get you the recipe, dear.”  
  
Malfoy beams at her, popping another biscuit in his mouth. He says around it, “Thank you kindly, mother-the-second.”  
  
Ron stands there, gape-mouthed, holding an empty biscuit plate—none of which he’s helped to clear—and blurts out in pure disbelief, “The bloke who threatened me with an Unforgivable just now—you’re good with him? Really?” He glances at Malfoy quickly but he’s not paying any attention, he’s stacking biscuits in his hand to deliver to his mouth. Still, Ron should probably pull that back. He adds in a whinging tone, “Not that I don’t want you to be, understand, but… _really, Mum_?”  
  
His mum gives him a warm, somewhat exasperated look. “What, dear? He showed his best, didn’t he?” Ron stares at her in disbelief, and she drops her chin with a fond shake of her head. “He’s honest with your family rather than toadying, he’ll hold you accountable for your share, and he’s invested in your happiness because he can’t be if you aren’t.” Her brow furrows and she admits, “He won’t be too lovely when it comes to communication, but then you’re not exactly a fit example of that yourself. And he will be honest if you’re direct, so it’s not doomed.”  
  
Ron blinks at her, eyes wide. “You got all that from, what, a thirty word exchange?”  
  
She shrugs as though the idea there might ever be another way to go about it is laughable. “I am your mother,” she says with a little shrug. She looks at him more closely and asks like she already knows the answer, “You are happy, aren’t you?”  
  
Ron can’t help the smile that smacks against his lips. “Brilliantly.”

* * *

“You’re certain?” Lucius Malfoy’s voice is low, dangerous.  
  
Ron’s insides abruptly feel cold, and his skin breaks out in gooseflesh. “Uh,” cursing himself for the stutter, he tries a stronger, more forceful, “Yes.”  
  
Malfoy’s a still, solemn presence near the mantel, letting this play out without interference. The marble behind him is a brilliant white, streaked with silver, and it makes his curls look even less blond than usual, his skin paler.  
  
Mr. Malfoy toys with the heavy object. “This is something you want to do,” a coiled threat hides behind every syllable, “even knowing how… dangerous it might be for you to continue?”  
  
Ron swallows. “It is.”  
  
Mr. Malfoy attacks, smashing Ron’s chess piece aside. “I hope you meant to sacrifice your bishop to me, Mr. Weasley.”  
  
Ron smirks, unable to help himself. “I did, actually.” He moves his queen diagonally across the board through the hole Mr. Malfoy has just made. “Checkmate.”  
  
Mr. Malfoy leans in, the twin curtains of his hair swinging forward, studying the board with an unhappy, “Hm.”  
  
Malfoy clears his throat, shoves his hands into the pockets of his floral jacket, and says somewhat manically, “Stunning defeat number two—and hopefully the devastation of the first will put this second, minor one into perspective—I’m pregnant.”  
  
Mr. Malfoy blinks, leans into the curve of his wing-backed armchair, which is an intimidating force all its own, and asks gruffly, “Who’s the father?”  
  
Malfoy stares at him. “You genuinely think I brought a random bloke along to distract you with chess first?”  
  
Mr. Malfoy seems to have forgotten Ron was there and he blinks in surprise when his attention swings back around to him, giving a defeated, “Ah.”  
  
“What a pale child that will be,” Mrs. Malfoy says in a thin voice from the couch by the fireplace. She’s been quietly knitting since Ron arrived, and doesn’t appear to be any better at it than Hermione.  
  
The grate near the couch is unlit, which is unfortunate since without it the entirety of the open first floor feels chilled to the bone. It’s not the temperature as much as it is the emptiness and the shadows.  
  
Ron turns back to Malfoy, winks. “Vlad is back on the table, I told you.”  
  
Malfoy snorts, and Mrs. Malfoy frets, asking with exaggerated care, “Has he got a top job?”  
  
Malfoy can’t hide his lack of enthusiasm over the answer. “He works for the Ministry. In Magical Games and Sports.”  
  
Oh.  
  
Right.  
  
That.  
  
Ron opens his mouth to correct him, watching Malfoy absentmindedly stroke his lower abdomen through his thin button-down, before closing it again. He shouldn’t tell Malfoy he’s an Unspeakable, not when he won’t be one much longer.  
  
It’s not without its dangers, that, and Ron has a family to provide for now. Besides, it’s not a secret that George could use some help at the shop and Ron could use a job that’s only about a quarter likely to end in an early demise.  
  
Mrs. Malfoy’s frown is so committed it’s almost comical. “Is he very funny?” It’s almost a whisper.  
  
Ron clicks his tongue and tips an imaginary hat. “Ha, kind of you to pretend you haven’t noticed it, Mrs. Malfoy.”  
  
Malfoy ignores him, answering his mother with a shrug. “Not especially.”  
  
Ron glowers at him.  
  
Mrs. Malfoy sighs, back to her knitting. “I suppose it’s true what they say, beggars and all.”  
  
Ron turns and gives Malfoy an exaggerated wink. “I think it’s going well.”  
  
Mr. Malfoy waits until Ron swivels back to give him a heavy stare, a too-long silence, and the simple command: “You won’t win at chess again.”  
  
Ron almost has to sound it out, saying slowly, “You want me to—let you—win at chess?”  
  
“Yes,” Mr. Malfoy says with a dignified nod, encouraged that Ron has caught on so quickly. He waves a dismissive hand, adding, “I might ask you to cry in defeat at some point as well.”  
  
“I can definitely bring up the tears here,” Ron mutters under his breath.  
  
Malfoy hears him and barely catches a loud snort, turning it into a throat clear.  
  
Mrs. Malfoy sets down her knitting. Ron suspects it’s because she’s knotted it beyond even magic’s ability to repair, but she seems in brighter spirits now Ron and Mr. Malfoy have come to an accord. “That’s settled, then.” She turns to address Ron. “Do you garden, Mr. Weasley?”  
  
Ron lets himself relax for the first time since setting foot inside the manor. “It’s Ron,” he says warmly. He shrugs and adds, “And I’m pretty wicked at throwing gnomes?”

* * *

Malfoy’s pale lashes flutter, his skin painted in oranges and reds, his curls a deep yellow from the dying light filtering in through Ron’s bedroom windows. Only a white sheet is half-thrown over his right leg, not entirely covering his soft prick, and he hasn’t made any moves to remedy that, not since Ron parted him from his clothing early this morning.  
  
His hair is a sweaty tangle, curls looser and messier with the heat and perspiration, and he fits here. Malfoy’s bedroom is dark and close, while Ron’s is beiges and tans and light. The rest of his bedding ranges from pale to cobalt blues, and Malfoy looks good against all of it, moon-pale and dusky pink.  
  
Ron watches as Malfoy idly lifts his arm, dragging a thumb against his own lower lip, stretching it, then tapping the back of his hand against his mouth. Once, twice. His fingers twitch. “I want a fag.” He glances at his hand as though surprised it hasn’t retrieved one.  
  
“You’re up the duff,” Ron reminds him, his palm automatically finding and fitting to the small bump of Malfoy’s midsection at the mention. His dick swells slightly when he does. He’s stopped questioning it.  
  
Malfoy’s eyes find him, almost as if he forgot Ron was beside him, and his gaze roams over the ball of Ron’s shoulder, the slope of his clavicle, the length of his jaw, lingering on the more freckly bits. “Yes, that’s why I don’t _have_ a fag,” he agrees, exasperated and annoyed. He blinks at Ron’s ceiling, mouth slowly curving. He rolls over, and the sheet pulls away, and Ron stares. He only stops when the backs of Malfoy’s fingers settle just above his navel, drifting up his middle and coming to rest between his nipples, brushing back and forth softly. “Smoke one for me.”  
  
“Not around the kid,” Ron says, cavalier, knocking his hand away, but it’s a bluff, and Ron’s tell is currently straining to meet up with Malfoy’s thigh.  
  
Malfoy takes him in a firm grip, strokes him sure and with a twist, the way Ron likes, but only once. “Weasley,” his smile is tight. Dangerous, “smoke a _fucking_ fag for me before I gouge one into your eye.”  
  
He lets go. Ron mostly doesn’t whimper, and grumbles, “Right then.” Malfoy’s trousers didn’t make it past the entryway, and Ron goes after them starkers and impatient.  
  
They’re exactly where they’ve both left them, and Ron grabs the first cigarette his fingers close on. He frowns at it. There’s no lighter left in Malfoy’s pocket, and Ron tries to recreate that flame trick of Malfoy’s, but doesn’t know the incantation for it.  
  
His combustion charm is a lot less elegant, but it gets the job done.  
  
Leaning against the door jamb to his bedroom, legs crossed at the ankles, nude and reposed, he sucks a shallow breath from its end. He pulls a face, holding the cigarette out in front of him, blowing out the smoke over the tip of it. He waves it towards Malfoy. “Think I’ve already got a headache from it.”  
  
Malfoy rolls his eyes, unsympathetic. The sheet is tossed over his propped knee, but not so far that it’s covering his lap. His back is a gentle curve, elbow resting on his drawn leg, two fingers at his blush pink lips, as though miming the experience Ron is having. His hair is damp enough that a few strands are hanging in front of his face, slicing through his alabaster brow and grey eyes.  
  
His crotch is in shadow, his thigh thick where it’s resting on the mattress, his chest lean, his midsection a comely slope.  
  
He’s bloody hot. It’s a sexy-ass man that Ron’s got in his bed.  
  
Ron’s about to say as much when he notices the _intent_ in those grey eyes. He’d thought it was for the fag, but Malfoy’s gaze is on his collar, his chest, his cock, his legs. Ron can just imagine how he looks, freckles so light they almost look orange in the highlight of the rest of his colouring, thicker across his cheeks, the balls of his shoulders, the top of his chest, lighter scattering down his thighs and calves.  
  
His hair is longer than its been in a while, enough that the chopped mess up top gets shaggy and tangled, and the kind of orange that draws attention. Under his navel the hair is darker, but the thatch at the base of his cock is nearly as light as the hair on his head. He’s pale and pink and orange, and nothing about him goes together, his long feet and thick cock and thin frame. Not like Malfoy, who’s pale and silver and aristocratic all over.  
  
Malfoy drops his knee over to the side, and Ron can see how hard he is. Leaking even. It’s in the strain of the muscles in his thighs, the clench of his fingers. His eyes are glinting in the sinking sunlight, shadows starting to creep up the bed, a puckish smirk curving his lips. “You look like sex, Weasley.”  
  
Ron knows his cheeks go red, he can feel the heat from it. “Yeah?”  
  
Malfoy’s smirk grows, his brow pops. “I’d pin you up.”  
  
Malfoy’s made Ron feel a lot of unexpected things, but attractive has never been one of them. He’s deduced it, but never quite felt it. The tops of his ears are warm, too, when he catches the end of the cigarette with his thumb, flicks it, and brings it back to his lips. The ash falls down onto his own foot but Malfoy doesn’t snicker.  
  
He’s staring at Ron’s mouth far too intensely for that.  
  
Ron saunters over after the inhale, exhales up Malfoy’s stretched leg. Ron watches him, waiting, until Malfoy rolls his eyes, and grudgingly snaps his wand up off the side table and casts a Bubble charm over his nose and mouth so he won’t breathe anything secondhand. His gaze is anticipatory as he lays back on Ron’s pillows, dragging his lower lip out from between his teeth.  
  
The borders of the charm are breachable, and Ron lets Malfoy taste the tar and heat on his tongue before pressing a kiss to Malfoy’s jaw, licking a line with the tip of his tongue down that arched neck. A drag on the cigarette, and he exhales the smoke down Malfoy’s torso, from chest to bump while Malfoy shifts and slides and tries to look like he isn’t desperately seeking friction for his cock.  
  
Ron sucks in a chest full of smoke, makes sure it hits the bottom of his lungs, then impales his mouth on Malfoy’s twitching cock. He’s truly testing the limits of his paltry skills, but he gets down to a few inches from the base, sucks and holds and manfully doesn’t gag. He pulls off slow, like his lungs aren’t burning for air, and exhales a pretty plume of smoke right over the head of Malfoy’s sticky cock.  
  
When he glances up, Malfoy’s eyes are wet, and his lips are parted, and he’s panting and pink-cheeked, and Ron _stares_. Malfoy gasps and begs, “Again, Weas—again.”  
  
Ron does it again. And again. He _Accios_ a second fag when his burns down to the nub, and the headache the first one gave him is starting to ease, but the loose limbed dizziness is still there and going strong. It makes him feel disconnected, kind of floaty, which is lucky because he’s sure he’d be seconds from coming without that.  
  
He kisses the inside of Malfoy’s thigh with odd-feeling lips, almost like they’re coated with some sort of resin. Then thumbs at his bollocks, licks and sucks while Malfoy tries to grind back into his face. Ron holds him still, only lifting his hand off one thigh to bring the fag to his mouth, drag deep and suck slow, then release the inhale directly against Malfoy’s spasming hole.  
  
The sound Malfoy makes when he does, a whimpering almost pained sort of pleasure, nearly makes the tingling, hazy sensation dissipate entirely. Malfoy’s calves hook over Ron’s thighs, dragging him in and demanding, “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.”  
  
Malfoy’s nails dig into Ron’s shoulders, and Ron can feel blood bubbling up to break the barrier of his skin, but the hiss changes in intensity when cold and slick abruptly coats his dick, because Malfoy and magic mid-coitus is unpredictable. Especially now.  
  
Ron grabs Malfoy’s bony hip, drags his arse onto his cock, and fucks him like he’s wanted to for a while now. Slower and surer and harder. Malfoy tries to speed him up a few times, but is quickly too incoherent with pleasure to demand anything more of him, just digs his hands into Ron’s hair and tastes the ash on his tongue.  
  
It puts Malfoy’s forearms right up against his cheeks and the ink of his garden is abuzz, three bees bumbling through thick and sprawling flowers now, and Ron thrusts harder when he sees it, his chest painfully tight.  
  
He pulls back to stroke the curls from Malfoy’s forehead, to suck a mark into his neck, his clavicle, and lets the idiot things piling into his mouth rattle around the bottom of his lungs with the last inhale of smoke, crushing the fag on the headboard.  
  
When he’s close enough, he pulls Malfoy to sit up in his lap. Malfoy whines, rubs his nose into Ron’s neck, and gathers Ron tightly to him, forearms piled one over the other behind his shoulders, when Ron comes inside him.  
  
Malfoy’s still hard and breathing like he can’t get air into his lungs when Ron leans him back, pulls out, and sucks Malfoy’s dick down. Malfoy doesn’t need much stimulation, and Ron doesn’t pull away, and for once, he doesn’t gag when Malfoy comes and instead swallows it down expertly.  
  
Malfoy’s so still after he almost looks lifeless, and Ron kisses his way from the inside curve of his foot all the way up to the side of his knee, to the crevice where thigh meets groin.  
  
He’s sated in a way he’s never been after sex, sated in a way that has nothing to do with the physicality of it. He keeps going, up Malfoy’s torso, kissing his jaw. “Well,” he says breathily, into his ear, more off-balance than he expected. His breath isn't quite back, and his limbs are still fuzzy, and his thighs are twitching. He presses his nose to the space behind Malfoy’s ear. It’s sweaty and tastes like salt. “We’ve never done that before. Merlin. _Why in the bloody hell have we never done that before_?”  
  
Malfoy shifts, turns his face into Ron’s hair, weakly pushing at him. “Go away,” he says, and his voice sounds as if someone’s grabbed his vocal cords and wrung them out until there are nearly no words left, “you’re very warm.”  
  
He’s smiling, though, his mouth heavily leaning into the curve of it, and Ron shifts off the bed, reaching around for trousers. “Yeah, yeah.” He’s grinning, too, and it’s probably for the best if they each get some space for a bit because those idiot things are still there and punching their way up his throat. He quirks a brow at Malfoy. “Shall I bring you back anything?”  
  
Malfoy’s gaze is half-lidded, his eyes glinting. “A pack of cigarettes.”  
  
Ron leans in, kisses him slow and with a simple, “Mm.” He leaves his flat and regrets it the instant the door closes behind him.

* * *

Memos circle above Hermione’s bushy hair, a carpet on a table in the corner consistently rolling and unrolling and levitating three metres before flopping back down into a tight curl. Hermione frowns over a hunk of rock, small bits of purple glittering from its crags and crannies, and asks while prodding at it, “You haven’t moved in yet?”  
  
Ron pshaws, stabbing a quill into a crumpled but still twitching stack of already read memos, spinning slowly around in Hermione’s desk chair. “We’ve been at it for six months is all, hell. ‘Course we haven’t. He’s Malfoy,” he feels the need to remind her, since she seems to be wilfully forgetting that point, “I need balls of steel to even attempt that. They’re barely concrete at this point.”  
  
He’s possibly got them to concrete as of today as he’s only just come from quitting the Ministry, which has filled him with both elation and despair, and he’s currently cresting and crashing between the two.  
  
Hermione rolls her eyes as though Ron’s point isn’t one. “He’s having your kid.” Whatever she’s done to the rock has made it burst into flame. That doesn’t appear like her intended goal either given the inventive swearing that follows said immolation.  
  
“Right,” Ron agrees, deciding not to comment on the on-fire rock. “Why compile that with another irresponsible decision? We don’t have a choice on the kid bit, leastways not one either of us wanted to opt for, but we do on the us part of it, and we’re going at the pace we always would’ve.”  
  
Hermione snorts, waving her wand at the rock. The flame gets bigger. “Your mother will love that,” she says through clenched teeth. He thinks that’s more about the fire-rock thing than his mother, though.  
  
He swipes his hand in the air in front of him, waving away the dark, billowing smoke. “Yeah, I’m considering just lying… continuously on that, and almost everything else. Malfoy’s on board.”  
  
Hermione finally looks up, ignoring the rock for the moment. She sets down her wand, giving Ron her full attention. “Are you going to marry him?” she asks with a tilt to her head. Ron knows what she wants the answer to be because a greater supporter of Ron and Malfoy as a unit, there is not.  
  
Though Ron’s mum comes close.  
  
It’s bizarre.  
  
His mouth is weirdly dry and his palms weirdly wet and he scrapes his tongue against his teeth. “Dunno. Figure I will.” _Merlin_. “Stuck with him forever already, aren’t I?”

* * *

“Should we get hitched then?” It crams its way out of Ron’s mouth in the tight fit of Twilfitt and Tattings’ dressing room before he can catch it.  
  
Malfoy’s expression goes wide, and he pushes Ron’s shoulder back, looking almost affronted as he affirms their position, using both the mirror and his eyes to get the three-sixty view of it.  
  
Ron swallows uncomfortably and mumbles, “What’re you doing?”  
  
“You do realise the kid’s going to ask about the circumstances one day, Weasley?” Ron’s cheeks go ruddy and Malfoy’s eyes glitter, either meanly or with amusement. Or both. “I want to be sure I’ve committed every detail to memory. ‘Then your da pushed his fingers inside me so he could keep me full of his come just a few seconds longer, odd duck, that one is. Of course, it was sans protection charms in those days because I was preggers at the time. Hah, that’s two good things that came out of that, then, eh?’ Promising start, I think.”  
  
The back of Ron’s neck is blazing heat but he refuses to be cowed so easily. Malfoy’s just been shagged senselessly and that was no one but Ron’s doing. “Long as you mention how good it was. Felt your knees buckle this time.”  
  
Malfoy’s lips purse tightly, expression haughty. “My knees did not buckle.”  
  
Of course the prig wouldn’t admit it. “They bloody well did. Think I don’t know why you grabbed at my neck like that? S’not passion, that’s for sure. You didn’t want me to know that I turned ya all to jelly.” Ron grins. “Can’t get anything past me, though.”  
  
Malfoy rolls his eyes. “Just eighteen Quaffles and the myriad uses for Contraception Charms.”  
  
Ron stabs in with his buried fingers and Malfoy’s eyeroll is not exactly under his control this time. “Oi. Prickhead. You didn’t exactly try to stop me.” He clears his throat and says sotto voce, “Also, the sun was in my eyes that day— _days_.”  
  
Malfoy’s prick is starting to swell again and he grumbles into Ron’s neck, “I hate you.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s mutual,” Ron says eagerly, slowly removing his fingers to replace them with his dick. He slides in slow, hardening further the deeper he gets while Malfoy’s legs shake. When he’s fully seated, he says, “So are we getting married, then?”  
  
Malfoy can’t speak until Ron pulls out the first time, then his lungs unpinch and his thighs start twitching at Ron’s waist. His fingers slide into Ron’s hair and he asks with a weak little smirk, “Are you going to plan it?”  
  
Ron snorts, shoving Malfoy up against the wall and pinning his hands above his head. “Circe, no. Give it to Hermione or one of the mothers; it’ll get done.”  
  
Malfoy’s expression goes sly, and he angles back to be sure Ron can see it. “Millicent. It’s only a yes if Millicent does the whole thing, stem to stern.”  
  
Ron gives him an uneasy look and perks a brow. “Millicent’s the one with the bowl cut? And shoulder pads? And all the… flobberworm art? And the taxidermied Skrewts?”  
  
“That’s the one,” Malfoy quips eagerly.  
  
Ron squeezes Malfoy’s hands where he’s holding them and gives a pointed thrust— Malfoy gasps, not expecting it—grumbling, “If you didn’t want to get married, you could’ve just said.”

* * *

“Godric, Malfoy, you gonna drop that kid any time soon?” Charlie bellows from across the odd collection of tables that make up the Burrow’s outdoor seating, still setting the table.  
  
Malfoy picks up the knife from beside his plate and says in a deadly hush, “I will stab you.” He grips the handle tightly. “I will set this on fire and skewer each and every one of your organs with it.”  
  
Ron gently pulls the knife from his grasp, rubbing a hand over his impressive midsection and saying against his ear, “Hey, don’t you go sweet-talking my brother, I’ve been missing that.” He watches his hand on Malfoy’s stomach with an awe he’s never felt before, those boxy shoulders leaning back against his chest as Malfoy redistributes his weight so his feet won’t ache as much.  
  
He lets out a soft, unintentional sigh as Ron’s support allows him a moment of relief. His curly hair smells clean and sweet against Ron’s nose, and his features relax, the tense crinkles at the corners of his eyes and lips slipping away.  
  
Ron wraps Malfoy’s tweed jacket tighter around his middle, holding it closed with his arms around him, bundling him into Ron’s warmth, and they stay there like that until the parade of dishes floats out onto the table.  
  
Ron pulls out Malfoy’s chair for him and rests a hand on the back of his neck, sweeping up with his thumb, focussed only on making sure that Malfoy’s expression stays uncrinkled.

* * *

The first warm day of spring, Ron meets Malfoy at a café near Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. The occasional breeze is just this side of too cold in the shade from the nearby treestand, but Ron casts a warming charm, and Malfoy sheds his coat. His grey button-down is unbuttoned to his sternum, and his eyes are lighter from the hue.  
  
Ron’s not quite avoiding the conversation he’s brought Malfoy here to have—that’s he’s started up with George now and never worked at Magical Games and Sports to begin with, though he’s left it late as they've already got their food and tea—as much as he is riveted by how good Malfoy looks in the pale sunlight and the spring afternoon.  
  
He’s so lost to the sight of it that he nearly falls out of his seat when Malfoy says, very matter-of-factly, “I love you.”  
  
Ron chokes on nothing, and Malfoy gives him an odd look, and he’s getting this all wrong, isn’t he? He clears his throat, says gruffly, “I know.” Which is obviously not true the moment it’s out of his mouth, so he amends, “Well. I suspected you might.” Malfoy’s still staring, and Ron feels like his scarf is trying to suffocate him. He yanks at it. “Okay, I had a rather minor inkling.” Sweat is dripping down into his eyes, and he gives up the ghost. “All right, it comes as a total shock, if you must know.”  
  
Malfoy’s still staring, his mouth halfway open around a flaky bit of pastry. Ron takes a deep breath and expels all those stupid things that have been trying to escape his mouth for months, “I love you, too, of course. Didn’t see it coming, knocked me on my arse in the best way, but fucking hell, am I glad you sucked my dick in a locker room in Devon eight months ago.”  
  
Malfoy, with an aching slowness, lowers his lunch back down to his plate, blinks, and says, “Firstly, that was utterly romantic, Weasley, don’t change a thing for the vows. Second,” he taps the pastie against the plate, drawing Ron’s gaze down, and says, “I was talking to the pastie.”  
  
Ron deflates, cheeks and the tops of his ears flaming red, wishing himself invisible. Or dead. He coughs, awkwardly. “Ah. Right. ‘Course.”  
  
Malfoy kicks him in the shin, more for emphasis than injury. He pops the rest of the pastie into his mouth, his eyes glittering brightly. The moment he’s swallowed it down, he says simply, “Don’t be stupid.”  
  
Ron sits up straighter, blinking in disbelief. “Yeah?”  
  
Malfoy rolls his eyes. “Obviously.”  
  
“Me too,” Ron says eagerly.  
  
Malfoy laughs, but it’s warm rather than taunting. “Again: _obviously_.”  
  
Ron leans across the table, eyes bouncing from Malfoy’s stomach to his face. “You saying yes, then?”  
  
Malfoy taps his fingers, one, two, three, pulls his mouth to the side thoughtfully, then: “Millie wants haggis as the entree.”  
  
Ron can’t help but pull back a little, nose wrinkling. “Isn’t that intestine?”  
  
Malfoy nods. “It’ll keep costs down.” A pause, then: “Not to mention the guest list.”  
  
“What about eloping?” Ron tries, because he _has_ to try. Right?  
  
Malfoy claps his hands together winningly. “You do intend to help Mother with her gardening, then; how grand.”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
Malfoy’s smile goes the slightest bit dangerous. “You do realise if we eloped, she would murder you and use your corpse as fertiliser?”  
  
Ron runs a hand through his hair, defeated. “Why is your family _terrifying_?”  
  
Malfoy sniffs. “Practicality is not terrifying. Just because you don’t utilise it hardly means it’s something to be feared.” He takes a pointed sip from his cup of tea.  
  
Ron sighs and tries to look put upon, but he’s grinning too widely to pull it off. “Guess I’ll have to marry you proper, then. Haggis, you said?”


End file.
